The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for
Business and Trade of the Government of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Minister of Economy,
Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty and the Minister
for Industry and Energy of the French Republic
wishing to strengthen bilateral relations between the French
Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland,
declare the following:
Today our governments have announced an Industrial Strategy
Partnership. This partnership offers an opportunity to grow key
sectors for the green and digital transition, build our economic
resilience and share knowledge and best practice to drive
economic growth and innovation.
The United Kingdom (UK) and
France are global economies founded on stability, fairness, and
the rule of law, and propelled by world-leading sectors and
companies. We both have a record of extraordinary research and
innovation; we are champions of openness and free trade; and are
two of the leading magnets for international talent and capital
in Europe. We are key investors in each other's economies, and in
2024 our trading relationship was worth over £100 billion.
And we face the same challenges in the pursuit of economic growth
in the context of rising geopolitical instability, an
increasingly volatile trading environment, and the impacts of
climate change on energy geopolitics, production and supply
chains resilience.
Now more than ever, businesses are seeking out countries that can
provide them with stability and the confidence to invest and
grow. Faced with similar challenges, and notwithstanding the
depth of our existing collaboration and breadth of our existing
trading relationship, we state clearly our intention to go
further together to boost mutually beneficial, secure and
resilient growth, and to provide certainty for our businesses.
This Industrial Strategy Partnership could harness the drive and
ambition presented in the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy
2025 and the French investment plan, France 2030. It
will build on the deep and impactful collaboration which already
exists between the UK and France on economic policy,
including in the areas of supply chains, economic security,
decarbonisation and support to small and medium sized business
(‘SMEs').
This close working has already facilitated the planning of
concrete exercises, such as the stress test on semi-conductors
carried out in January of this year.
We propose to focus our enhanced collaboration on complementary
strengths in frontier industries to build greater economic
resilience and growth opportunities in regions across
the UK and France.
It is proposed that our partnership include, but will not be
limited to, collaboration in the pillars of Technology, Clean
Energy Industries and Advanced Manufacturing.
We declare our intention to carry out the following actions to
give concrete expression to our co-operation:
-
cross-cutting – Industrial Strategy
councils: the UK's and France's respective industrial
strategy councils (UK:
Industrial Strategy Advisory Council and France: Conseil
National de l'Industrie) to continue to engage with each other
to share best practice, following on from the
Directorate-General for Enterprise-Department for Business and
Trade Dialogue
-
carbon capture, utilisation and
storage: drawing up a joint roadmap based on the
initial phase of joint planning towards closer co-operation in
order to continue exchanging best practice
-
critical minerals: strengthening
co-operation to secure supply chains
-
critical dependencies: sharing our
priority sectors of interest and methodologies for supply chain
analysis and mapping
-
artificial intelligence: supporting the
adoption of AI solutions
in SMEs. This includes
collaborating on the most effective means of delivering our
ambitious level of upskilling workers at the pace and scale
required to support SME workers to transition to
an AI-enabled
economy
To ensure focus on delivery, we propose that the annual Dialogue
between the UK Department for Business and Trade
and the French Directorate-General for Enterprise of the French
Ministry for Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital
Sovereignty take on a new Industrial Strategy Partnership
oversight role. We want this delivery focus to be boosted by the
addition of a Ministerial bilateral as part of the Dialogue.
We will strive to develop a joint roadmap to deepen and sustain
our collaboration, including support for investment in each
other's economies and identifying opportunities for collaboration
in third markets.
At the core of the partnership is a strong and central role for
industry. We will strive to build on the
existing UK-France
Business Forum bringing together government and the most
important businesses and business organisations in our bilateral
relationship.
This Joint Statement does not create any rights or obligations
under international law.
