British Exports

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

I am proud of our great country. We have always been innovative global leaders. In Britain we have some excellent products, goods and services that the world wants to buy. The United States is the UK’s largest trading partner. The UK exported £112 billion of goods and services to the US in 2016, which is 18% of our total. That is slightly less than double the value of exports to Germany, which is the UK’s second largest export market, at £57 billion.

But it is the emerging economies where we are seeing the greatest growth. In 2017 the UK exported £22 billion of goods and services to China, making it the UK’s sixth largest export market. Trade with India has also increased, and India’s share of UK exports has increased from 0.9% to 1.7%. I hope to see that trade increase, and the British Government should be doing all they can to ensure that we can take advantage of our historical links with the Commonwealth, China and the USA.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers report “The World in 2050” looks at how the global economy is likely to change by 2050. Its key findings are that the world economy is due to double in size in just over 30 years, far outstripping the rate of population growth. Emerging markets in the E7 are expected to grow around twice as fast as the advanced developed nations of the G7. If that model is correct, current emerging economies are projected to be six of the world’s seven largest economies in 2050, led by China in first place, India in second and Indonesia in fourth.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

My constituency of Strangford has just secured a significant contract with China for dairy and milk products worth £250 million over five years. The Secretary of State for International Trade initiated the contract, with help from local people. Does the hon. Lady agree that China and the Pacific nations are markets where we can do more with agri-food? There is a lot of trade in that area on which we can build, and when we leave the EU we can do even better. We should look towards the good times when we leave the EU on 29 March 2019.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

The hon. Gentleman and I are clearly on the same page about the opportunities for the UK when we finally leave the EU.

The US will be down to third place in the global GDP rankings in 2050, and the EU27’s share of world GDP could fall below 10%. According to this report, the UK could be down to 10th place, France will be out of the top 10 and Italy will be out of the top 20, as it is overtaken by faster-growing emerging economies such as Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam.

We are at a crossroads, and not just for our country and Brexit. There is a shift in global economic power from the west to the east. This cannot be stopped. It is right that a country with a population the size of India should have a higher GDP, which is good for tackling extreme poverty. It has also been shown that it is only through capitalism and trade that these countries will grow. The UK, as an outward-looking trading nation, has a chance to forge strong links with the economic powerhouses of tomorrow. We need to get in there first, take advantage of our position now and be able to sign free trade deals to fully maximise our opportunities.