What can Britain ‘win’ from the shifting global geopolitical and macroeconomic order?
On Tuesday 25 March the BTC will hear evidence on the UK’s trade relationship and trading prospects with Asia; across the macroeconomic and geopolitical outlook, services exports and manufacturing.
Meeting details
Donald Trump’s escalating and uncertain “tariff wars” are reshaping more than global trade flows and routes. The geo-political realignment they have sparked is ramping up the race between the US and China for technological and economic supremacy.
But even as China surges ahead in green energy technologies, electric vehicles and is making sudden advances in artificial intelligence, its own economy, upon which so many others in the Asia-Pacific region and farther afield rely, is slowing.
How does “trading nation” Britain respond to support its own growth-driving sectors and maximise the opportunities for export-led growth in this new reality? How can the UK support renewable energy and carbon trading, and what impact will this have with our relations with the Asia Pacific?
And how is all this balanced against economic and national security considerations?
The UK is in advanced negotiations to conclude a new free-trade agreement with India that could add 0.12% to 0.22% to GDP and boost UK wages; is deepening ties with Japan after an initial FTA concluded in 2020; has acceded to the CPTPP trade bloc and is deepening ties with the ASEAN treaty nations.
How good is the UK at turning negotiations into value added trade deals, and are we looking in the right places as trade and geo-political alliances shift?
And how can Britain respond to Asia’s dominance in e-commerce and develop a model to fairly and efficiently tax the large volumes of direct, online, consumer trade?
Chair of the BTC Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP said “As America turns inward, there are new prizes for nations like ours who want to reach out. Asia Pacific accounts for half of global growth and with strategy, skill and care, Britain has built deep networks of trust across the region with defence alliances, from Five Eyes, to AUKUS, to GCAT Tempest to the Five Power Defence Alliance. On that foundation of trust, we now need to build trade faster and deeper. So this new report will ask the simple question: how do foster faster growth and good jobs at home by turning to face the east?”