AIC welcomes UK's accession to CPTPP free trade bloc
The Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) has welcomed news that the UK has officially joined a prominent Indo-Pacific trading bloc - the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - as "a positive step".
The CPTPP is a free trade agreement (FTA) between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam, as well as the UK.
Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, signed the agreement in New Zealand yesterday (16 July) to formalise the UK's membership of the trading bloc, which has a combined GDP of £12 trillion.
Reacting to news of the deal, Ed Barker, AIC's Head of Policy, said: "This is positive step in fresh trading relations between the UK and countries around the world.
"While this free trade agreement will make it easier to trade goods between the UK and the 11 other countries - many of which are large agricultural importers and exporters - we wait to be see just how significant the deal will prove to be for AIC Member businesses in the agri-supply industry."
Author
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.
