Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's three-day visit to Britain has sparked a flurry of trade and investment deals between the two countries. On Tuesday alone £14bn of deals were done, with the most significant being a £12bn long-term agreement for BP to supply Chinese oil group CNOOC with liquefied natural gas.
China Minsheng Investment Corporation, the country's biggest private sector investment group, will open its European headquarters and invest £1.5bn in London. China Merchants Securities will boost commodity trading and reinforce London's position as the largest renminbi-trading centre outside Asia.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
What the commentators said
With our foreign sales expanding faster, however, we are close to overtaking them and becoming Europe's second-biggest exporter to China. But when it comes to enticing the Chinese, the world's highest-spending tourists, into Britain, there is still a lot of work to be done, said The Daily Telegraph.
Onerous visa requirements, which are crying out for reform, explain why the Schengen area gets 1.4 million Chinese visitors a year compared to the UK's 292,999.
It's "terrific that Britain is flingingits doors open to investment" from China, said Alex Brummer in theDaily Mail, but it's rarely as easyfor British firms in China.
The legal system is opaque and heavy-handed; witness the seizure of a GlaxoSmithKline executive's passport and the lack of due process after he and his colleagues were charged with corruption. It seems"easier for Beijing to level chargesagainst foreign investors than theirown political classes who have grown rich on klepto-capitalism".
-
ChatGPT turns three: what’s next for the ‘AI era’?Three years after its launch kickstarted the age of AI, ChatGPT and its maker OpenAI are driving the stock market. But concerns are growing over whether OpenAI will be able to turn its AI dominance into profit.
-
What to do with old £1 coinsThe old one pound coin was demonetised in 2017, but there are still millions out there in the UK. Here’s what to do if you find an old £1.
