22nd March 2013 Washington DC, USA
Last week, I argued that a successful Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would put millions of consumers on both sides in touch with millions of businesses on both sides and be a real shot in the arm for business and jobs. In that blog, I argued that a successful TTIP would benefit the US in […]
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19th March 2013 Warsaw, Poland
A fundamental part of the UK’s growth strategy is to get British exports moving. About time – we have run a trade deficit for the last 40 years and we lag behind our EU peers in growing our international trade; 25% of French, German and Italian SMEs export. Looking at our region in particular, British […]
3rd March 2013
Avalon is not just the title of a 1980s Roxy Music album. It’s also an airport in Melbourne which hosts an important aerospace and defence show every two years. That’s quite fitting really as, in Arthurian legend, Avalon is the mythical place where King Arthur’s sword Excalibur was forged, so the name has a longstanding […]
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15th February 2013
As Carl Bildt underlined in the Riksdag, the US is Europe’s main international partner, on the security and prosperity agendas. So the UK government welcomes, as Sweden does, President Obama’s call in his State of the Union Speech last night for what he called “a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” with the EU. Britain has […]
13th February 2013
In the Palm Court of the British Consulate-General in Istanbul, staff are gathered from British Embassies in eight South Caucasus and Central Asian countries1 ranging from Georgia in the west to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the east. Trade and Investment specialists from the British Embassy in Moscow and from UK Trade and Investment in London as […]
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1st February 2013 Seattle, USA
After three and a half years of leading the British Embassy in Washington’s trade policy and business affairs team, I’ve taken up a new assignment. Still in the US, happily, and a lot closer to the mountains. Still has “Washington” in the address. Still working on prosperity, trade and investment. But on the other side […]
25th January 2013
In the second season of the excellent US series “The Wire”, a trade unionist working on the Baltimore docks says he’s just seen a film about Rotterdam – one of the most automated container ports in the world. He calls it a horror movie. I thought of “The Wire” during the recent “Container Handling Technology […]
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23rd January 2013
The State of Gujarat, an hour’s flight north of Mumbai, can claim many important contributions to India. It was the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, another key leader of the independence movement and India’s first Home Minister, and Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the massive eponymous conglomerate, hails from Navsari in Gujarat. Gujarat […]
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16th January 2013
How can British companies best approach the Turkish market? Which sectors are most promising? Are there case studies? What on-line services are available? You can find the answers to all these questions and more in the splendid UK Trade and Investment in Turkey brochure. This includes: A summary of services which UKTI can provide to […]
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28th December 2012 London, UK
For anyone who enjoys sitting down over the holidays and reading the newspapers, Christmas and New Year are open season for lists. And in 2012, there’s been a lot to talk about. We’ve seen colleagues from across Government emerging bleary-eyed from late-night negotiations in Brussels having won around new allies to our point of view, […]