MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Lord Mandelson calls for UK to boost trade with Bric countries
The former business secretary: ‘we have to earn our living in the world’ Britain could boost its exports by £27 billion if it increased its share of trade with four of the world's fastest growing economies, Lord Mandelson has said. In a speech in London, the former business secretary drew attention to findings that suggest UK exports to Brazil, Russia, India and China - the so-called 'Bric countries' - are lagging behind the rest of the world.
Before giving his lecture, Lord Mandelson told the Boulton & Co programme: “We don't just earn our living at home and in Europe, we have to earn our living in the world. This globalising process presents... challenges to us. First of all, how we match and compete with fast-growing economies like China, India, Brazil and others?
”We are an open economy and free-trading. We invite people's goods and services to be sold in our market and for others to invest in our economy. We want a reciprocal attitude taken to our goods and our services, and when we want to invest”.
This week the Financial Times quoting from HIS Global Insight said that the UK has dropped to ninth place, behind Brazil and South Korea in the World Manufacturing League.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank says if Britain could increase its exports to the Bric nations to match its share of global trade, it could close an “export gap” worth £19.8bn with China, £3.2bn with India, and £1.8bn with both Russia and Brazil.
Lord Mandelson said in his speech: “Britain's place in the global economy reveals a £27 billion export gap to the Bric countries. While British exports to Bric countries have increased rapidly in the last decade, they are still behind Britain's share of world trade.
”If Britain increased its share of Bric countries' imports from their current levels to 3.7% - our global average - it would be equivalent to £27 billion. IPPR's work will seek to identify how to close this gap.“
The former EU trade commissioner also warned of protectionist forces distorting trade between the West and some of the emerging economic giants elsewhere in the world.
He talked of ”very real political anxiety“ that the globalisation of markets has led not only to economic growth and prosperity for some, but to job insecurity and wage stagnation for many people.
The financial crisis since 2008 has added ”another layer of complexity and political reaction to this“, Lord Mandelson said.
”It seems to exemplify for many the volatile and unaccountable power of global markets. And the extent to which our lives, our jobs, our pensions can end up as collateral damage in their periodic crises”.
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Read all commentsDoes anyone in the UK still listen to this fool ?
Mar 12th, 2011 - 05:45 am 0In general terms, I tend to agree that the Prince Of Darkness has not been uniformally 'a good thing' for the UK and its economy.
Mar 12th, 2011 - 07:03 pm 0However, in this instance, he is voicing things that I have argued for for the last three years.
During the years that I have lived in Brasil I have lost count of the times I have observed poor practice, poor workmanship, poor (machine)tools, poor products - all in a country with poor education and abysmal infrastructure.
The country is crying out for high-end partnerships - and at last, through Dilma Rousseff, there is a possibility that the ideological stranglehold on development and trading partnerships can lead to Brasil becoming a true member of the first world community of trading nations.
Not as a 'passive' supplier of raw materials and food products (alone), but as a world producer of high-end goods, produced in partnership with the UK.
There is no reason why all such partnerships should gravitate to the US, to Japan, to Germany and to China.
UK companies are becoming insular and timid in the world market-place.
Brasilian companies (with few exceptions) look no further afield than South America.
Together, and through the bonds being built linking Mercosur and the EU, bi-lateral partnerships can bring easy trade into a billion homes and workplaces on two continents . . . . . and then to compete and succeed with the rest of the trading world.
My opinion on this man ,,, If he was pro, British and pro British military,
Mar 12th, 2011 - 11:06 pm 0and anti European , this man with his arrogance and despicable manner, would be fantastic for Britain, he would tell the Europeans to fax off, scrap the European rights laws, and by now we would have a powerful military and Argentina would have been put firmly in her place years ago,
,,,,,,,, but sadly the arrogance of this man against the working class was disgusting, he is by far anti British, pro European, his wish to be president of the Euro train if he could, and I do not like him at all, but to be fair when it comes to trade, he knows what he is talking about,, sadly another possible geniuses , that turned out to be a loser, ??
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