#accelerate#economy#negotiations#opportuni
At the beginning of 2022, there is still no progress in the negotiation of the free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is difficult to see a breakthrough in the foreseeable future. Therefore, the United Kingdom has high hopes for the negotiations with India to officially start on Thursday (January 13) with Delhi. Big expectations.
By 2050, India is expected to become the third largest economy in the world. The UK government wants Anglo-Indian trade to double within a decade.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Britain's secretary of state for trade, called the prospect of a free trade deal with India "a golden opportunity" that, of course, could yield huge commercial benefits.
George Riddell, Ernst & Young's trade strategy director, said the opening of the talks was a "welcome step", which he said had sparked real enthusiasm in the business community.
However, Chris Morris, a BBC Global Trade correspondent, said that India has many vested and vulnerable interests that need to be protected, and has been reluctant to liberalize.
The EU has been trying for years to reach a meaningful deal with India, with little success. Australia, too, has been trying to reach a deal for a decade.
Negotiations in areas such as government procurement policy and trade in services have been particularly difficult.
Riedel pointed out that the terms of trade currently used between service providers between the UK and India date back to 1995 and do not cover any technological advances that have occurred over the past 25 years.
India has always placed high demands on Indian professionals and students to work and study abroad to obtain UK visas.
Both the UK and India are now eager to reach a swift UK-India deal, British officials said, hoping the ambitious timetable could be completed by the end of 2022.
RCEP Officially Enters into Force: Opportunities for China to Dominate the Asia-Pacific Region and Challenges for Taiwan
The UK and EU trade politics behind the "fishing and killing family" in the UK and France
UK-EU trade spat: How 'sausage war' involves UK 'territorial integrity'
If the history of negotiations with India in recent years suggests that negotiations will be difficult, why is the UK trying to get a trade deal with India as soon as possible?
Part of the reason, says BBC correspondent Morris, is India's size: India has a huge population and a huge market.
When the British government announced the official launch of the negotiations, it pointed out that India's economy exceeds 2 trillion US dollars and has a huge market of 1.4 billion people.
The government also said that if a UK-India free trade agreement was reached, it would create huge benefits for both countries. Total UK-India trade could increase by £28bn a year by 2035 and increase wages across the UK by up to £3bn. 95,000 jobs are currently supported by Indian investment in UK projects.
Difficulty negotiating with other countries
Britain has stepped up efforts to secure a trade deal with India, also partly because of the difficulty it has had in negotiating with other key economies.
BBC reporter Morris analyzed that for Britain, China is basically a restricted area. Although the scale of China's economy has exceeded the US$17 trillion mark, it also has a population of 1.4 billion.
The US is also saying no; other large emerging economies like Brazil are extremely difficult to negotiate with; and the UK has reached a deal with the EU, albeit on worse terms than before the UK left the EU.
Smaller deals, such as the one already struck with Australia, and another in-principle agreement with New Zealand in 2021, could be struck. The UK government sees these agreements as an important step towards joining the CPTPP, the trans-Pacific trade deal, in the world's most dynamic region.
But the troubling fact is that after leaving the EU, the UK is trying to rebuild its trade policy almost from scratch, while many governments, broadly speaking, are focused on the domestic economy.
Overall, some of the momentum behind a trade deal has faded, said Emily Jones, associate professor of public policy at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government.
The lack of momentum behind a multilateral agreement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not help the UK. And, under the leadership of Presidents Trump and Biden, the United States has been focused on protecting workers at home.
domestic political pressure
As a result, the UK's Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the UK economy will shrink by about 4% in the long run, as less trade takes place outside the EU's single market, and officials are under pressure to find elsewhere to make up the shortfall.
Ms Jones said: "British civil servants working in trade are really good, but I think politics is driving the trade negotiating agenda. The importance of demonstrating performance has been given a higher priority than intrinsic economic value."
The government will dispute this. It is trying to boost digital trade and services exports, areas in which the UK economy often excels. But the overall strategy is less clear.
When it comes to the environment, for example, analysts say it's not yet clear how Britain's trade policy will align with Britain's climate goals.
In agriculture, the UK government wants to promote a shift towards sustainability and biodiversity. But at the same time, it has agreed to open up agricultural trade with Australia, which is much more corporatized (industrialized) than the UK.
NFA president Minette Butters is of course critical of the UK-Australia trade deal, saying Australia's deal is one-sided and offers little benefit to UK farmers.
The government responded that it was trying to strike a new type of trade deal, which meant some might not like it because it would be different from past deals.
Last month, British Minister of State for Trade Mordaunt delivered a speech in the United States urging Washington to stand with Britain in the "global game between two competing models of capitalism".
Free trade Britain is on one side, she argues, while the EU, a trade bloc that is pushing its regulatory system to the rest of the world, is on the opposite side of Britain.
Mordaunt also said that Brexit is a major geopolitical event that requires a U.S. response that recognizes this momentous moment, and the opportunities that come with it.
Many critics shrugged it off, saying the speech was begging for U.S. support for Britain on trade issues.
Anton Spisak, policy director of the Tony Blair Institute, criticized the speech as one of the most embarrassing speeches by a British government minister in 2021.
But the UK government insists critics lack ambition and ministers are determined to provide substance to the slogan of the Global Britain.
Trade policy in 2022, and progress in negotiations on a trade deal, will be another major test of the UK's global strategy.
- 前ページ
- 次ページ