Forum stresses positive force of China-UK trade

Fang Wenjian, chairman of the China Chamber of Commerce in the UK, organizer of the forum, said that based on the chamber's latest survey, Chinese companies in the UK appeared to be recovering well from the challenges of the pandemic, as 74 percent of the companies reported stable to growing revenues in 2021, compared with the previous year, and 73 percent of the respondents have reinvested all or majority of their profits back into the UK economy.

"I'm immensely proud of the efforts we have made to promote our relationship, which is highly complementary and mutually beneficial, and we place a high value on continuing to foster closer ties between our two great nations."

Sherard Cowper-Coles, chairman of the China-Britain Business Council, echoed Zheng on the important role of practical business cooperation in the two countries' common goals and common interests, and in dispelling the groundless accusations that undermine healthy bilateral ties.

"When our transatlantic friends worry about their intellectual property being stolen, they should go to Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing and see how so many of the technologies of the 21st century were done by Chinese … China is the economic power of the future and we in Britain would be quite mad to decouple from that great power," he said.

Cowper-Coles also cited research commissioned by the business council to point out that trade with China has created nearly 150,000 jobs across the UK, and to note that 75,000 people have been hired directly by more than 800 Chinese companies in the country.

In addition, he said that British exports to China have grown by more than 900 percent during the past two decades, and that Chinese exports to the UK have grown almost as quickly, expanding by about 892 percent.

"The 500 million middle-class Chinese consumers like Peppa Pig and the Premier League, want to buy Range Rovers manufactured in Solihull, Burberry coats woven in South Yorkshire, Scotch whisky distilled in our beloved highlands, salmon raised in the farms of the locks of western Scotland. They want to eat shortbread and they want to buy British," he said. "And we need, ladies and gentlemen, to be part of that great commercial flow in both directions."