The UK, as guest of honor at the 25th China International Fair for Investment and Trade, is looking to strengthen economic ties with China through cooperation, competition, and constructive challenge. Its goals include opening new business opportunities for UK-based companies in China, attracting Chinese investment into the UK, and partnering with China in international markets. Gerard Lyons, Economist and Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK), spoke to CGTN Europe about the future of China-UK relations.
00:00Well, let's talk to Gerard Lyons, the Economist and Senior Independent Director at the Bank of China in the UK.
00:06Gerard, welcome back. Good to see you. This is all intriguing.
00:09What message does the UK, being guest of honour at this event, send to global investors?
00:16Well, I think it's a positive message.
00:18It was a positive message from the UK's perspective in terms of its opportunity to showcase its economic and business opportunities.
00:26It's also a positive one in terms of your question to international investors by signaling from the Chinese side that they're keen to build on recent strong economic foundations in terms of the UK-China relationship.
00:40So it's a positive both ways, both for the UK selling into China its opportunities and also positive in the sense it's a signal from the Chinese side of the hope to build on that UK-China relationship.
00:52The UK sent a pretty substantial delegation. What's the UK's plan? What does the UK need to get out of this?
01:00Well, it's a great opportunity for those businesses, given the size of the Chinese economy.
01:06It's very important, I think, to actually put this in the context of the UK relationship with China at the moment, which is based on the so-called three Cs, cooperate, compete and challenge.
01:17Now, the challenge is more in terms of national security areas, but in terms of the cooperation and basically competing with China, it's very much about the business side.
01:28So from the UK angle, it's really threefold.
01:31One, the opportunities in the Chinese economy to open those up for those UK businesses that are there.
01:37Second, to actually sell the opportunities in the UK to the Chinese firms.
01:42And third, probably most importantly, given all of this, for the UK and Chinese side to partner together.
01:49There's lots of service companies attending this.
01:52So the UK would like to be the service provider as China goes overseas and internationally.
01:57What's in it for China?
02:00Well, the Chinese economy is opening up.
02:02China is trying to deepen its ties overseas.
02:05And I would argue it sees the opportunity to actually deepen ties outside of the US, given the US-China geopolitical situation at the moment.
02:17From the UK side, in terms of trying to seize on that, the UK is really showcasing, I would say, maybe half a dozen or five key areas.
02:27Financial and business services.
02:28You could put those one or two together.
02:30The clean energy component as well.
02:32And then there are other areas that have become very important in terms of the UK industrial strategy, namely advanced manufacturing, life sciences and the creative sector.
02:43So coming back to your question, it's very much China seeing this as an opportunity to build ties and maybe business opportunities overseas, particularly in Western Europe, given the challenges with UK and US-China relations at the moment.
02:56Well, against that landscape then, what does the possibility of a UK-China reset in relations mean for the rest of the world?
03:04Well, in terms of the rest of the world, it's recognising not only the opportunities in China for every other country, but that this is a very competitive environment.
03:16The UK is trying to build on its ties.
03:19And we've been doing that over the last year.
03:21Even though we now have a new foreign sector in the UK, it's unlikely to change things at all.
03:26But over the last year, the UK government has been very much trying to build on economic and financial dialogue in terms of the financial sector and now the economic areas.
03:36So in terms of for the rest of the world is to recognise that the UK is actually trying to position itself and also that China is signalling that it sees the UK as a strong bilateral economic relationship.
03:47Hopefully that will continue into the future.
03:48Gerard, good to see you and thanks so much for coming back on the programme.
03:52Gerard Lyons, the economist and senior independent director at the Bank of China in the UK.
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