The UK and Turkey have locked in tariff-free trading
arrangements, which will support our trading relationship worth
£18.6 billion in 2019, and committed to working towards a more
ambitious trade agreement in the future.
The UK-Turkey Free Trade Agreement was signed today as
International Trade Secretary and Turkey’s
Minister for Trade, Ruhsar Pekcan, met on a video call.
The deal will secure existing preferential tariffs for the 7,600
UK businesses that exported goods to Turkey in 2019, ensuring the
continued tariff-free flow of goods and protecting vital
UK-Turkey supply chains in the automotive and manufacturing
sectors.
Both countries have also committed to working towards a more
ambitious free trade agreement in the future, which will go
further than the existing deal and will be tailored to the UK
economy.
Today’s agreement will ensure preferential trading terms for UK
businesses that exported more than £1bn worth of machinery, and
iron and steel exports worth £575m, to Turkey in 2019.
It also ensures UK businesses can continue to import under
preferential tariffs, compared with no agreement. This supports
UK importers of textiles, where the annual increase in estimated
duties would have been around £102m under WTO terms. Tariffs
applied to UK imports of washing machines and televisions will
remain at 0%, compared to up to 2% and 14% respectively under WTO
terms.
Vital UK-Turkey supply chains will also be protected for
automotive manufacturers, such as Ford, which employs 7,500
people in the UK. Car parts are imported from the UK to Turkey to
assemble the Ford Transit range of vehicles, a third of which are
then exported to the UK. In 2019, UK car exports to Turkey were
worth £174m.
In under two years we have now reached agreement with 62
countries – and the European Union – to cover £885 billion of UK
trade.
This is unprecedented, with no other country ever negotiating so
many trade deals simultaneously. The Government’s ambition is to
secure free trade agreements with countries that cover 80% of UK
trade within three years.
International Trade Secretary said:
“Today’s deal covers trade worth more than £18 billion, delivers
vital certainty for business and supports thousands of jobs
across the UK in the manufacturing, automotive and steel
industries.
“It paves the way for a new, more ambitious deal with Turkey in
the near future, and is part of our plan to put the UK at the
centre of a network of modern agreements with dynamic economies.
More trade and investment will drive economic growth across our
United Kingdom and help us build back stronger from Covid.”
Stuart Rowley, president, Ford of Europe, said:
“Ford welcomes the announcement today of a trade agreement
between the UK and Turkey, and the speed with which it has been
concluded underscores its importance to the economic prosperity
of both countries.
“As Europe’s leading commercial vehicle brand, Ford’s Dagenham
engine manufacturing facility in east London exports much of its
diesel engine production to our Ford Otosan joint venture in
Turkey where the engines are fitted into Ford Transit vehicles,
many of which are then exported from Turkey to the UK.
“Given that Ford and Ford Otosan business constitutes more than
10 per cent of the total trade volume between the UK and Turkey,
this trade agreement is extremely significant for us and will
help to secure jobs in both countries.”
Andy Burwell, CBI Director of Internal Trade, said:
“This agreement will maintain bilateral trade worth over £18bn
and will shore up key supply chains across many industries after
a year of disruption.
“Turkey’s customs union with the EU made a trade deal with the UK
complicated, but the pace at which the deal has been finalised
following the negotiated EU deal shows the strength and depth of
the relationship.
“Businesses and government must now look to growth, creating the
trading relationships which will build a competitive, dynamic and
progressive future economy.”
