Gulf States Urge U.K. To Move Forward On Free Trade Talks

Gulf States Urge U.K. To Move Forward On Free Trade Talks

Gulf states are pushing the U. K. to launch negotiations on a free trade deal but London is showing little interest in prioritizing the issue, despite the region accounting for a substantial chunk of total U. K. trade. The idea of a free trade deal came up at a meeting between the U. K.'s Middle East minister James Cleverly, trade minister Ranil Jayawardena and representatives from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states on 22 February, alongside other topics such as preparations for the COP26 environmental summit in Glasgow in November. Also on the agenda was the U. K.-GCC joint trade and investment review which began in November and which is expected to wrap up this summer. The U. K.'s trade with the six GCC countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - is worth around £45 billion ($62. 5 billion) a year. That makes them the fourth largest trading partner for the UK, after the U. S., the E. U. and China. However, efforts by some Gulf countries to persuade Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government to launch free trade talks in the near future appear to have met with some resistance. "What we suggested was