Chancellor George Osborne in bid to strengthen ties with China
Chancellor George Osborne is due to announce plans for a "new era" of ties between the UK and China, as he embarks on a week-long visit to the world's second largest economy.
Osborne will meet with senior ministers from the Chinese government, as well as senior Chinese business leaders, in a bid to open up billions of pounds of potential opportunities.
“Our partnership [with China] for growth, reform and innovation is helping to deliver record levels of investment and trade in both directions, but there is much more we can do," Osborne said in a statement.
The tour ties in with the government's ongoing bid to strengthen the UK-Chinese business relationship. Under the coalition government Britain, became the first Western state to issue Chinese currency bonds.
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Lord O’Neill, the commercial secretary to the Treasury, is joining the chancellor on the delegation.
Business secretary Sajid Javid, energy secretary Amber Rudd, communities secretary Greg Clark, minister for small Business Anna Soubry and City minister Harriett Baldwin will also attend parts of the tour.
The Chancellor is looking through concerns about a slowdown in the Chinese economy, which ripped through global markets recently. The turmoil prompted the US Federal Reserve to hold fire on its first interest rate hike in nearly a decade yesterday.
Chinese gross domestic product growth slowed to seven per cent in the first half of this year. And yet, even with the slower expansion of its economy, China will represent around a quarter of global growth.