Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
Driving commercial and political engagement between Asia, the Middle East and Europe
In a new Asia House Research briefing, Freddie Neve, Middle East Associate at Asia House, explores the state of UK-GCC free trade agreement negotiations – including potential obstacles to a deal and what could feature in a future FTA.
The UK government has staked much political capital on forging an independent trading policy post-Brexit, with free trade agreements (FTAs) central to this strategy. The UK wants FTAs to cover 80 per cent of its cross-border trade by 2022 and has its sights on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a key market to help realise this ambition, recently concluding a public consultation on GCC trade in January 2022.
A comprehensive FTA with the GCC – comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman – would represent a major milestone in the UK’s post-Brexit global trade agenda. The GCC is the UK’s 10th largest trading partner. Bilateral trade reached £41.4 billion in 2019 but has since fallen to roughly £32.4 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The UK also enjoys a notable trade surplus with the GCC worth around £13.8 billion in 2020, creating incentives to broker a deal (see chart). However, there are a range of factors that could prove obstacles to an agreement.
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