The U.K. takes a decision to merge the Indo-Pacific business team

July 18, 2023: Britain’s Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, formally signed a treaty guaranteeing accession to the vast Indo-Pacific CPTPP bloc, the country’s most significant post-Brexit trade agreement.

On Sunday, Signed in New Zealand, the agreement will now receive parliamentary scrutiny in the U.K., while different CPTPP nations will also complete their legislative processes. The U.K. government said that 99% of the current U.K. goods exported to CPTPP nations will soon be suitable for zero tariffs.

The member’s Complete and Progressive Contract for Trans-Pacific Partnership includes Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia. The U.K. would be the first European nation to join the bloc, which the government says would unlock trade to a part with a total GDP of £12 trillion.

How much the deal helps Britain’s growth prospects remains to be seen. Based on the state’s estimates, the deal will raise long-term domestic GDP by 0.08%, which will have little impact to offset European trade losses because of Brexit. The U.K. officially left the E.U. on Jan. 31, 2020.

On Sunday, Badenoch said Britain was exploiting its status as an independent trading nation to join an “exciting, growing, forward-looking trade bloc.”

″It will help grow the U.K. economy and build on the hundreds of thousands of jobs CPTPP-owned businesses already support up and down the country,” she said. One in every 100 workers in Britain was used by a business headquartered in a CPTPP nation, according to the government noting 2019 data.

Badenoch added that the deal would “open up huge opportunities and exceptional entry to a market of over 500 million people.”

The trade pact evolved out of the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, that developed in the United States but fell apart after retired President Donald Trump scrapped U.S. involvement.

Sean McGuire, the Europe Director at the Confederation of British Industry, stated that the deal, alongside an outward and strategic global trade agenda by Britain, has the “potential to drive export-led growth in vital sectors, such as services and green tech, while also making our cache chains more resilient.”

“As one of the biggest agreements internationally, including some of the world’s most active essentials, U.K. companies will be eyeing up new trade and acquisition opportunities,” he stated in an emailed statement.