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Michael Gasiorek

Centre Director

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Emily Lydgate

Deputy Director

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The UK Government launched two major strategies in a week – the Trade Strategy following the Industrial Strategy by just a couple of days. Both are very much to be welcomed and publishing them (more or less) at the same time makes sense because they are so closely interrelated. Indeed, the Industrial Strategy makes clear that “the UK will continue to be a champion of free and fair markets, as the best route to prosperity” and the Trade Strategy states that “we remain resolute in our belief that fair and open markets are the best route to growth”. Those two statements make clear that the underlying primary objective of both strategies is that of economic growth.

The Trade Strategy provides more detail on quite what it means for the current government for the UK to be a champion of free and fair trade and open markets (itself a bold commitment in the current global context).

On the positives:

However, no strategy is perfect and there are some issues which raise concerns:

In sum, the strategy is welcome and contains many valuable elements, and some areas which fall short of what we might have hoped. The next important question has to do with its implementation. It is unclear how elements of the strategy will be prioritised or what are the proposed timelines for delivery are, and this is another area in which it would also be useful to have more clarity.

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