In early May, the British Pioneer, a cargo ship from Ningbo, arrived at the Port of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. This was the first port call for the ship on the China Express line operated by the British All Sea Line. Goods from China are distributed from here to all parts of Britain. This epitomizes the sound momentum of China-UK trade.


This year marks the 50th anniversary of china-UK diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. It is widely believed that this opportunity will usher in more win-win opportunities for China-UK trade and economic cooperation.


Trade has maintained a sound momentum of development

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As a direct sea freight route linking Shanghai and Liverpool, the "China Express" was first launched in April 2021. "China express" has changed from a year ago, short-term temporary arrangements to long-term fixed routes, currently on the route between the British cargo ships between leaving every 10 days, can within 30 days from Shanghai and ningbo port in China with 1500 ~ 1700 containers to the port of Liverpool, not stop, greatly shorten the transportation time, improve the efficiency of goods by sea between the two countries. Since its launch, the line has transported more than 60,000 containers in and out of the UK, supporting more than 200 local businesses.


"The rapid development of the China Express line demonstrates the high degree of interdependence between China and the UK and the potential and resilience of bilateral trade development." Ni Yueju, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with the International Business Daily.


In recent years, China-UK trade has maintained a good momentum, which has not been reversed by the epidemic. Cost-effective goods from China have supported the UK in its fight against the epidemic and helped the British people curb the pressure of rising prices. Products from The UK have helped meet the diverse demands of China's huge consumer market. Statistics show that in 2021, bilateral trade in goods exceeded $110 billion for the first time, making China the UK's third largest trading partner and largest source of goods imports.


In addition, Britain's "Brexit" has also changed its trade composition to some extent. The UK exported £20bn less goods to the EU in 2021 than it did in 2018, before the formal brexit process began, according to new figures released by the Office for National Statistics. The latest figures from HMRC also show that the number of UK businesses exporting goods to the EU has fallen from 27,321 in 2020 to 18,357 in 2021. The EU is the UK's largest trading partner, and many trade barriers British companies face when exporting goods to the EU after Brexit are also hindering trade growth, according to analysis.


Ni said that since Brexit and the pandemic, the UK's imports from the EU have fallen sharply, while China has overtaken Germany to become the UK's largest source of goods imports. Trade with China has also become an important driving force for the UK's economic growth.

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There is more opportunity for China and the UK


Over the past half century, China-UK relations, despite ups and downs, have grown steadily on the whole. Two-way trade has increased from us $300 million to US $100 billion, and two-way investment stock has risen from almost nothing to US $50 billion. In 2021, despite the ups and downs of the epidemic and the difficult recovery of the world economy, China-UK economic, trade and investment cooperation continued to grow against the trend.


First and foremost is the breadth of economic and trade cooperation between China and the UK. In terms of investment, the stock of two-way direct investment between China and the UK reached us $47.8 billion in 2021, an increase of nearly US $5 billion over the pre-EPIDEMIC period. The two sides have conducted deeper and broader cooperation in finance, infrastructure and new energy. Figures show that in 2021, UK investment in China increased by 22% and Chinese investment attracted by 246%, making Chinese investment in the UK a new highlight of bilateral economic and trade cooperation. The UK is one of the most popular investment destinations for global investors. Chinese companies attach great importance to the British market. They are deeply integrated with local society, earnestly fulfill their social responsibilities, promote sustainable development of their businesses, and create a large number of jobs directly or indirectly for local people. It is worth mentioning that the two countries have close financial cooperation. In 2021, the amount of OFFSHORE RMB clearing in London will exceed 60 trillion yuan. The central banks of the two countries renewed a bilateral currency swap agreement with a swap volume of 350 billion yuan in the next five years.


At the same time, China and the UK have complementary economic structures and huge potential for economic and trade cooperation. Industry generally agreed that China and Britain will continue to deepen the goods trade, finance, manufacturing, infrastructure construction, and other areas of the traditional cooperation, at the same time continue to expand in the medical and health, green technology, green finance, new energy vehicles, digital economy, creative industry in areas such as pragmatic cooperation and efforts to develop the third party market cooperation, build more cooperation new luminescent spot.


NiYueJu also said that in the future, China's new development pattern to speed up the building, improving continuously the opening to the outside world, to further improve product quality, superposition and "neighbourhood" all the way to accelerate the development, and the "take off the" trade diversion effect appeared gradually, which will provide the Sino-British economic and trade cooperation wider development opportunity and development space. If China and the UK can start negotiations as soon as possible and sign a bilateral free trade agreement at an appropriate time, the bilateral mutually beneficial economic and trade cooperation will set a new milestone and usher in the next "golden era".