Commonwealth Countries: Trade

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

Many SMEs look first to the nearer markets in the European single community because of the shared regulatory regime and the proximity of them. Therefore it takes extra effort on our part to make sure that we help SMEs when they go further afield. We are certainly doing so and I know for a fact that at the Intellectual Property Office we have just started to put envoys into other countries to be able to help small and medium-sized businesses when they try to export to countries to which they would find it quite daunting to export if they did not have the help of the Intellectual Property Office and the embassies.

[Lord Dholakia]

One of the key factors to emerge at the Commonwealth Business Council conference in Perth in Australia was the greater dependency of Australia and New Zealand on trade with the Asian Pacific zone rather than the West. Has the Minister worked out not the short-term but the long-term implications of how this will affect British trade and the British economy?

[Baroness Wilcox]

Our exports are up everywhere and we are talking to everyone. I just hope that if my noble friend has any more new ideas that we are missing out on he will let me have them.