Reeves eyes new year trip to China to bolster trade ties

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is drawing up plans for a visit to China early next year that would include resuming a key financial services trade summit for the first time since 2019.

Sky News has learnt that the Treasury is in detailed discussions with Chinese counterparts about holding a UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) as early as January.

The meeting would take place in Beijing and would be the first such gathering since June 2019, when Philip – now Lord – Hammond was chancellor.

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Deteriorating political relations and the pandemic conspired to prevent further chapters of what was intended to be an annual summit taking place since then, but Whitehall sources confirmed on Tuesday that an EFD was now “likely” early next year.

They cautioned, however, that a date had yet to be set between the two governments.

If confirmed, it would be Ms Reeves‘ first trip to China since Labour’s general election victory, and comes as Britain faces tough questions about whether it plans to follow the European Union and US in imposing tariffs on electric vehicle imports from China.

Last month, the chancellor held talks with He Lifeng, China’s vice premier, after which Chinese state media reported that Beijing was willing to restart the economic and financial dialogue between the two countries.

Sources said that alongside the government-to-government talks, a private sector delegation was expected to hold a parallel financial services summit.

Companies such as HSBC Holdings and Standard Chartered would be expected to send representatives to such a meeting given the scale of their presence in the country.

Responding to an enquiry from Sky News, a government spokesperson said: “Last week, the chancellor spoke with vice premier He Lifeng to discuss enhancing economic and financial cooperation and communication.

“They agreed to take forward discussions on timings and areas that could be covered in future engagement.”

The Treasury declined to comment further.

In July 2022, key City stakeholders were told provisional plans for the 11th UK-China EFD had been abandoned after months of preparations.

During the chancellorship of George Osborne, the Cameron government prioritised a “golden era” of UK-China relations in which Beijing would authorise tens of billions of pounds of investment into British infrastructure projects.

The Conservatives were criticised, however, for allowing economic ties to prevail over concerns about China’s human rights record.

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Speaking to Bloomberg two weeks after Labour’s general election victory, Ms Reeves said: “We are a small open trading economy and we benefit from those trade links with countries around the world, both for exports and imports, but also for foreign direct investment.

“Our view is that where possible we trade, we co-operate and we challenge in areas where it’s important to challenge, but we don’t want to close the UK economy down to imports and exports.

“We benefit from those trade links around the world, including with China.”

China’s current investments in Britain include British Stel, which is owned by Jingye Group.

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