Mediaboss Marketing

By Jean Shaoul 8 April 2017

Prime Minister Theresa May has launched a trade offensive aimed at securing foreign inward investment in Britain and free trade deals around the world, with the initial focus on Asia and the Middle East.

May dispatched Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to find new export markets in India, and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox to Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and the Persian Gulf. May herself made a three-day visit to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The trade offensive comes just a few days after May signed, on March 29, the letter formally invoking the Article 50 two-year withdrawal process from the European Union (EU). In effect, May chose to ignore the EUs common commercial policy that bans its members from opening formal negotiations or signing bilateral trade and investment deals with any other country or bloc. Trade Minister Fox acknowledged the restriction but insisted, We can step up a gear in our activities and thats what well be doing.

In January the prime minister told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Britain was willing to leave the EU in a clean breakin effect triggering a hard Brexit, involving no access to the Single Market. By that time, she had already approached Australia, New Zealand and Indiawith May visiting Delhi last Novemberto discuss trade deals.

Maintaining London as a global financial centre is pivotal to these missions. Hammond went to India accompanied by Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, and a delegation that included ministers and senior figures in financial services and financial technology, in a bid to market the City of London as the global FinTech capital. Hammond is pressing India to use London as its base for launching its Masala bonds, securing digital payments services and countering tax evasion.

The various trade missions to India, the Far East and the Persian Gulf emphasised financial and business services, Britains key export. In 2015, unable to compete in manufactured goodsoutside the arms industryBritain exported 225 billion in services, some 44 percent of all its exports, while importing just 138 billion. In manufactured goods Britain ran a sizeable deficit. Just 1.7 percent of its exports went to India, less than that going to Sweden and a tiny fraction of the 44 percent which goes to the EU as a whole.

But securing a deal in financial services is no easy matter. Hammonds visit follows last years visit by May and others by four trade ministers. These all stalled over the issue of visas, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that Britain relax its restrictions for Indians hoping to migrate to the UK. This conflicts with Mays pledgeto appease the Tory right-wingersto substantially cut immigration post-Brexit.

Mays insistence on including students in Britains net migration figures has seen the number of Indian students attending British universitiesa major contributor to the UKs export revenuesfall by 10 percent over the past year, according to official figures. Hammond and foreign secretary Boris Johnson have called for May to relax that position.

Liam Foxs visit to Indonesia and the Far East underscored the reactionary horsetrading that the British government is now engaged in. During his visit to the Philippines, Fox grovelled before President Rodrigo Duterte, who has encouraged the vigilante killing of hundreds of drug addicts, petty criminals and street children, saying he would be "happy to slaughter" them in their millions. Fox said that the government had "shared values" with the Philippines and was photographed smiling broadly, side by side with Duterte.

Foxs tour follows earlier visits to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, notorious for their abuse of migrant labour, for discussions on trading relationships including a possible free trade agreement. Since then, Fox has visited three other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) membersOman, Bahrain and Kuwaitas well as other countries.

Earlier this year, Downing Street confirmed that May would visit China, probably next month, in a bid to restore commercial relations with Beijing that have cooled noticeably since she took office. In a marked shift from former Prime Minister David Cameronwho had sought to boost trade with China and initiate a golden era in relationsMay cited national security concerns in July in deciding to review the building of an 18 billion nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, prior to approving it some months later. China has a major stake in the Hinkley Point project.

Mays visit to China is part of a wider global offensive that has seen her visit the US and Turkey. She concluded a 100 million deal with Turkey for fighter jet equipment and support services in January, having visited Bahrain just before Christmas, and hosted the Israeli and Italian premiers in February.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia are key partners in the US-led military interventions in Syria and Iraq. In Jordan, May pledged a further unspecified sum for Jordans offensive against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). An additional 160 million was pledged by May in aid for Jordanian companies that employ some of the 1.3 million Syrian refugees now living in the countryas a means of keeping them in Jordan and out of Europe. This is a condition imposed by Britain for buying Jordans exports.

Saudi Arabia is the main customer for Britains defence industry, accounting for 83 percent of UK arms exports. It signed a 40 billion deal with the UK in 2007 to buy 72 Typhoon fighter jets from BAE Systems, with another 48 soon to be agreed. In the last two years, since the start of Saudi Arabias brutal war in Yemen to push back the Houthi rebels who took over much of the country in early 2015 and reinstate the US-backed government of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the UK has approved arms sales to Riyadh including missiles, naval systems, jets and cluster munitions, worth more than $4.1 billion.

May aims to restore relations with the Saudi dictatorship that cooled following the postponement of Camerons planned visit last year. This was in response to the Saudi regimes mass beheading of 47 people and an ongoing judicial review of Britains arms sales to the country for the war in Yemen.

In Riyadh, May focused on financial services, worth about 1.9 billion in annual trade, counter-terrorism and security. Accompanied by London Stock Exchange chief Xavier Rollet, she was on a charm offensive to get Riyadh to float the sale of a five percent stake in the $2 trillion government-owned Aramco in London, which faces fierce competition from Hong Kong and New York. Her office said London would assist on tax and privatisation standards to help Saudi Arabia diversify its economy and become less reliant on oil, a key Saudi objective.

The UK would help review Saudi defence capabilities and overhaul its defence ministrycode for further sales of arms, police and advisory services, as part of efforts to strengthen defence cooperation and deepen military ties with the oil monarchy. In a truly Orwellian statement, May said that the UK would establish the first joint UK-Gulf Cooperation Council counter-terrorism working group. This intensifies collaboration with a government that has funded Islamist terrorist forces for decades.

Read the original:
UK mounts trade offensive in defiance of European Union - World Socialist Web Site

Valletta: European Union finance ministers admitted on Saturday that the worlds 20 biggest economies (G20) will miss their target of generating additional economic growth through reforms by 2018 and called for reflection on why they have failed.

G20 economies agreed in 2014 to boost growth in their economies by at least an additional 2% over 5 years through reforms, adding more than $2 trillion to the global economy and creating millions of jobs.

It seems likely that we will not reach our 2-in-5 growth ambition by 2018, said a terms of reference document approved by EU finance ministers for the next G20 financial leaders meeting on 20-21 April in Washington. We should reflect on the appropriate communication around our 2-in-5 objective and build a shared assessment and understanding of why we have not fully delivered, said the document, obtained by Reuters.

It is thus vital to accelerate the implementation of structural reforms and of investment in productive infrastructure, it said.

EU delegations to G20 meeting in Washington will also reiterate that the G20 should avoid all forms of protectionism, support the Paris agreement on climate change, the work on green finance, and the multilateral approach to taxation and to financial regulation, the document showed.

The declaration, while standard in previous G20 meetings and communiques, has become problematic since Donald Trump became the president of the United States last year.

At a meeting in March in the German town of Baden Baden, G20 finance ministers dropped a pledge to keep global trade free and open, yielding to an increasingly protectionist United States. Breaking a decade-long tradition of endorsing open trade, the G20 made only a token reference to trade in their communique in a clear defeat for host nation Germany, which fought the new US governments attempts to water down past commitments.

G20 finance chiefs also removed from their statement a pledge to finance the fight against climate change, an anticipated outcome after Trump called global warming a hoax. Reuters

First Published: Sat, Apr 08 2017. 07 20 PM IST

Read more here:
European Union admits G20 economies will miss extra growth target - Livemint

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Ukraine to Get Visa-Free Travel to European Union From June Wall Street Journal (subscription) BRUSSELSUkrainian citizens are set to visit the European Union without a visa from June, following a vote on Thursday that represents a major victory for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The European Parliament voted to allow Ukrainians with ... Ukraine's passport website crashes after EU votes for visa-free travelExpress.co.uk Three million Ukrainians can soon visit EU visa-freeEUobserver European Parliament approves visa-free travel for UkrainiansDeutsche Welle all 69 news articles »

Go here to see the original:
Ukraine to Get Visa-Free Travel to European Union From June - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Image Credit: Pixabay.Com CCO Public Domain

On June 23, 2016, the residents of the United Kingdom (UK) shocked the world by voting for the countrys exit from the European Union (EU), or Brexit. On March 29, almost nine months after the historic referendum, the countrys Prime Minister, Theresa May, began the official separation process with a letter to EU President Donald Tusk. It urged the remaining member states to allow the UK to leave in a fair and orderly manner, and with as little disruption as possible on each side.

The six-page document that outlines some of the countrys hopes and requirements during and after the separation, invoked Article 50 of the EU Agreement, which states: Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. Officials from both sides will spend the next two years hashing out the details of this unprecedented break from the EU. The issues will range from imposing trade tariffs to migration policies, as well as deciding on new regulations to govern automobiles, agriculture, etc.

Both sides have a lot at stake as they begin the arduous process of unraveling the four-decade-long relationship. The UK, currently the worlds fifth-largest economy, has to tread carefully not to lose ground with its biggest trading partner. The EU, on the other hand, has to ensure that Britain does not get a better deal than it currently has. Thats because if the new treaty is even perceived as more favorable, other European nations will start to consider leaving the Union as well. Tusk has made it clear that the EU Councils priority, as it goes through the discussions, is to uphold the interests of the Unions remaining 440 million citizens.

The UKs negotiating power could also be weakened because a majority of Scotland and Northern Ireland, two of the four nations that make up the country, did not vote for Brexit. The residents are, therefore, unhappy with the current situation. On March 28, the Scottish Parliament authorized the Scottish Government to hold a referendum on the nations independence from the UK. The vote is scheduled to take place sometime between late 2018 and early 2019 after the Scottish people have some clarity on the consequences of the separation from the EU. Meanwhile, Irish nationalists are using Brexit as an excuse to rekindle their decades-long fight to make Ireland an independent nation.

There is going to be much uncertainty as the UK officials and members of the EU Council navigate through this uncharted territory over the next two years. However, both sides have promised to make the process as painless as possible for the residents. Hopefully, they will keep their word.

Resources: CNN.com, Guardian.co.uk, Wikipedia.org, The Verge.com

Excerpt from:
United Kingdom Begins Formal Process To Exit The European Union - DOGOnews

Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said that the United Kingdom (UK) has expressed interest to pursue a regional trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), weeks after the European Union (EU) expressed intent to do the same.

Lopez told the Inquirer that UKs International Trade Secretary Liam Fox announced that they would like to have a free trade agreement with the Asean after Brexit, noting that the UK was not allowed to make any trade negotiations while its divorce from EU was ongoing.

Fox visited the Philippines last April 3 to 4, making the country the first Asean member that the cabinet official visited after UK formally notified EU of its plan to leave the economic bloc. Lopez said he was informed about this intent during the visit in his position as this years Asean chair.

UK said it can explore with Asean FTA as they Brexit, Lopez said in a text message yesterday.

He said that a regional trade deal would be more efficient to pursue because that would mean an FTA with 10 countries instead of one at a time.

UK and the EU, which will one day be divorced from each other, seem to have their eyes set on the Asean market, which has a combined economy of $2.6 trillion and a market of 600 million people.

In March, the Asean Economic Ministers, together with EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malstrm, announced that they would eventually go back to the negotiating table for a regional trade deal, years after the initiative was dropped to focus on bilateral FTAs.

It would still take time for details to be fleshed out of the regional deals, with EU and Asean in the midst of crafting the framework of the agreement while it would take at least two years for UK to leave the European bloc.

Prior to this, British Ambassador to Manila Asif A. Ahmad said that the UK was interested in having an FTA with the Philippines after Brexit. He said they would adopt the terms of the EU-PH FTA, should it be completed during the two-year period.

However, Lopez suggested that the bilateral trade deal between UK and the Philippines might have to be dropped since the Philippines would still be engaged in the proposed UK deal via the Asean.

Continued here:
UK eyes trade agreement with Asean after it leaves European Union - Inquirer.net