- Business and Trade Secretary will visit Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and the United Arab Emirates on a five-day tour this week.
- A deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council is expected to
increase trade by 16% between the UK and the region.
- 2022 saw a significant boost in UK services exports to the
region, including innovative British green firms expanding across
the Gulf.
Business and Trade Secretary will hold talks to encourage
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Ministers to advance the
UK’s ambitions for a modern, comprehensive trade deal as she
visits Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this
week.
Meeting her ministerial counterparts in each nation, and new
Secretary General of the GCC Jasem Al-Budaiwi, Badenoch will also
speak with senior business leaders and investors to build on
inward investment to the UK – currently worth more than £15.7bn –
delivering on the government priority to grow the economy.
Ahead of her visit, Business and Trade Secretary said:
“We already have a strong trade and investment relationship
with the Gulf nations, but I’m determined to strengthen this
even further.
“The GCC represents an enormous opportunity for UK firms, whether
it’s selling brilliant British food and drink products into new
markets or offering new consumers for our flourishing
digital trade and renewable energy sectors.
“I know my counterparts are as ambitious for this deal as I am,
and I’m ready to match their ambition.”
The trip comes as the total trade between the UK and GCC reached
a record high of £61.3bn in 2022.
The UK began negotiations with the six-country bloc in 2022 and
has completed three rounds of talks so far.
Collectively, the GCC is equivalent to the UK’s seventh
largest export market. Their demand for goods and services is
expected to grow rapidly to almost £1 trillion by 2035 – an
increase of over 75%.
This will open huge new opportunities for UK businesses, from
food and drinks to cars and clothes –removing these types of
tariffs as part of a trade deal will help to increase choice for
GCC consumers, giving them access a greater range of UK products.
This will help to create jobs across the country, support
businesses to expand and grow the economy.
A deal with the GCC will also play to the UK’s strengths as a
global services superpower. Of the total, UK exports to GCC
amounted to £36 billion, with more than half being services.
Pioneering green technology firms based across the UK are already
taking advantage of the region’s pivot away from fossil fuels.
Innovators including Levidian Nanosystems, Sonihull, Graphene
Solutions and G-volution are boosting sustainability and clean
energy and have expanded their operations to the Gulf as the
region diversifies their economy.
Levidian Nanosystems CEO John Hartley said:
“The GCC is an important region for Levidian – the combination of
large-scale gas assets which require decarbonisation, heavy
industry which can benefit from graphene application, and a
political will to decarbonise at pace make it an area in which
Levidian can have significant impact."
The Business and Trade Secretary will speak at the Qatar Economic
Forum on Tuesday and take part in a series of business
engagements throughout the week.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- UK firms have at least £13.4 billion invested in GCC
economies and GCC firms have at least £15.7 billion invested in
the UK as of 2020. These figures do not fully capture the size of
the UK-GCc investment relationship due to data disclosures.
- As part of the terms, a GCC Free Trade Agreement can also
include bespoke chapters with each individual nation. Round
3 of negotiations concluded in March and Round 4 will take place
later this year.
- In 2022 food and drink exports to GCC markets totalled £877m,
an increase of more than 40% in current prices on the £625m-worth
in 2021. Some of the top exports include whisky, cereals and
chocolate. The FTA will seek to remove non-tariff-barrier issues
related to marking and labelling, making it easier for more UK
food manufacturers to trade and comply with the local rules and
regulations.
- The UK is the second largest services exporter in the world
and top services exports to the GCC in 2022 were other business
services (£4bn), travel services (£2bn), and financial services
(£746 million). UK exports of services to GCC increased by 48% or
£6 billion in current prices, in 2022 compared to 2021.
Services trade makes up 67% of total exports to Saudi Arabia and
is our 10th largest service export market in the world.
- All regions and nations of the UK are set to benefit from a
trade deal with the GCC. Communities outside of London are
expected to benefit most, with the East Midlands, West Midlands,
North East and Yorkshire and the Humber in line for the greatest
relative gains.
UK Businesses expanding to the GCC:
-
Levidian Nanosystems: Founded in 2012, they
are a British climate tech business whose patented technology
cracks methane into hydrogen and carbon, locking the carbon
into high-quality green graphene, WHICH is the production
methods of graphene with recyclable materials, which will cause
the least damage to the environment. Their Technology Centre in
Cambridge also offers R&D consultancy to companies in the
development of graphene-enhanced products, can be used for
applications including composites, concretes and mortars,
rubber, and more. They currently export to the UAE and actively
exploring opportunities in the Saudi Arabia.
-
-
Sonihull: Sonihull: NRG Marine Ltd is the
company that has developed Sonihull. The company specialises in
the development of ultrasound technology that prevents marine
algae, weeds and molluscs from colonising ocean-going vessels
and structures like ships and wind farms. The technology
removes the need for poisonous chemicals and microplastics in
antifouling coatings and can reduce fuel consumption by up to
30%. Sonihull has 25 staff across 4 continents supporting over
30 representative offices and has major clients in all GCC
countries. Sonihull Labs was established in 2020 and is based
in Abu Dhabi and is the companies R&D centre. It is the
only full-time laboratory in the world dedicated to ultrasonic
antifouling. Alongside the labs in Abu Dhabi is the company’s
operations centre, serving the GCC and wider area in both the
maritime and industrial sectors.
-
-
Graphene Innovations Manchester (GIM): GIM is
based at the University of Manchester and is a leading global
provider of graphene-based compounding services and advanced
manufacturing systems. Key products and technologies include
type V hydrogen storage (improved hydrogen leak resistance)
tanks and pipes. They have recently established a joint venture
in the UAE to develop sustainable concrete (with no cement and
no water) and smart personal protective equipment (active
cooling for hot weather) within GCC. They also signed an MoU
with Quazar Investment Company in April 2023 to spearhead
scale-up of graphene-based technologies, an investment vision
worth a total of $1billion.
-
-
G-volution: A Bristol-based firm which uses
unique-patented British technology to retrofit dual-fuel
engines in railway, marine and genset HGV trucks. This allows
diesel engines to use environmentally friendly fuels and
reduces harmful carbon emissions by up to 90%.
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