LONDON Prime Minister Gordon Brown, seeking to lift Britain out of a record recession as he battles to stay in power, urged stronger trade links with China in a speech to business leaders on Monday.
Brown, whose Labour government is expected to lose an election next year at the hands of the opposition Conservatives, unveiled a new growth strategy at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
The CBI, Britain’s biggest employers’ body, is focusing this year on how businesses can best recover from the country’s longest recession on record.
Conservatives leader David Cameron will later address delegates at the high-profile one-day event, which also featured International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
“Over a very, very short period of time, more than 400 companies have come to Britain from China,” Brown told CBI delegates.
“In our new growth strategy, I want not hundreds but thousands of Chinese companies in Britain, but also British companies in China.”
“And we will soon sign new strategic partnerships with India. Trade relations with the US are strong,” Brown told the event, which the CBI has billed ‘Routes to Recovery’.
“To go for growth in Britain we must also go for growth in Europe,” he said, adding that the region accounted for 50 per cent of the country’s trade.
In addition, the PM announced an international London investment conference to be held early next year. “We should have confidence that together we can and we will establish Britain’s place at the centre of this global economy,” he added.
Britain is the last major world power still mired in recession, after the eurozone, France, Germany, Japan and the United States all emerged from a steep global economic downturn.
“These have been the most testing times for British businesses,” Brown told the CBI conference.
“The global financial crisis led to a global trade crisis and then a global industry and jobs crisis,” he added.
Brown also spoke of his plans to nurse the public finances back to health after they were ravaged by recession and a series of expensive banking bailouts. The country meanwhile faces a general election by next June. “The most important driver of deficit reduction over the period ahead will be the growth performance of our economy, and the speed with which we can get unemployment down,” Brown said.
“As we take measures to halve the (public) deficit over the next four years, we will continue to make the necessary investment in growth and skills.”
In a separate address to CBI delegates, IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that although the worst of the global financial storm had passed, the world economy remains “highly vulnerable.”
Agence France-Presse
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