'We have signed over 80 bilateral trade agreements all of which are slightly better than we had through the EU,' says Daniel Kawczynski
Former Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski speaks on the UK joining the world's largest trading block in the CPTPP
Since leaving the European Union, Britain has become the world's fourth-largest exporter. Over the last three years especially we have moved up three rankings.
An extraordinary achievement bearing in mind how small we are in comparison with some of the major global countries around the world who are also recognised as being effective exporters.
We have signed over 80 bilateral trade agreements all of which are commensurate or slightly better than we had through the EU.
Again, an extraordinary achievement how a country one-sixth of the size of the EU manages to negotiate terms which are identical or slightly better than it had through a supranational state.
Finally, Brexit has facilitated us to join the world's largest trading block in the CPTPP. Members of this trading block in the Far East include some of the largest and fastest-growing economies in the world.
Hundreds of millions of new middle-class consumers come onto the market every year who are hungry for high-quality British consumer goods and manufactured products.
In 1980 the EEC represented 25 per cent of the global economy and today that figure is down to 10 per cent and continuing to fall at a remarkable rate. The elite classes of Brussels in their unaccountable towers have swamped business with regulations and red tape as well as extraordinary costs making it increasingly difficult for many of them to be able to compete on the world stage.
In contrast, the Far East markets are growing fast and entry into the CPTPP should allow us to recalibrate our import strategy away from the over-dependence on China which has become alarmingly stacked to their side over the last few decades.
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Writing as a former PM Trade Envoy for the last five years to Mongolia I became increasingly aware of two issues. Firstly, China now controls over 80 per cent of the world's rare earth minerals and we need to focus strongly on securing supplies of these from fellow democracies all over the world countries like Mongolia, Congo and Kazakhstan rather than being so dependent on a brutal Communist regime.
Secondly, JCB our best manufacturer of mining equipment is beating their Chinese competitors in places like Mongolia hands down due to quality and durability of goods and after-sales service.
No man has done more to destroy Brexit than Sir Keir. We know with his poor mandate only securing 33 per cent of the vote he does not have the mandate to take us back into the EU but we will be watching him closely to see whether anything he does to switch us back into the EU framework has a negative impact on the massive new commercial opportunities we have in the Far East.
We can only win this by demonstrating to the British people that their future lies in the Far East, Middle East and Africa rather than our own shrinking market.
