Global leaders from the worlds of business, education and government gathered at Mansion House in the City of London yesterday (9 May) to discuss the opportunities presented by the Commonwealth for enhanced trade.
At the Commonwealth Economic and Investment Council (CWEIC) and City of London’s ‘Coffee Colloquy’ gathering, seven speakers, including the Institute of Export & International Trade’s (IOE&IT) chairman Terry Scuoler, discussed current trading relationships and scope for growth.
Three shared factors were identified as underpinning significant trade opportunities in the Commonwealth: the common language, common law and shared financial systems, with a particular emphasis on how these contribute to increased interconnectedness in an increasingly digital trade world.
Commonwealth trade
Scuoler opened by celebrating the growing strength of Commonwealth trade, noting that from 2021 to 2022 UK exports to the commonwealth grew by 23%, reaching £83bn. Combined with import of £74bn, the relationship accounts for almost 10% of the UK’s global trade.
However, Scuoler added that part of the opportunity is to build links between the different members, as trade was highly concentrated among five of the network’s 56 states, with Australia, Canada, India, Singapore and South Africa accounting for 74% of the UKs inter-Commonwealth trade.
In particular, he believed more work should be done to enhance relations between the 19 sub-Saharan African Commonwealth nations, whose populations’ total 550m people.
Citing investment in “infrastructure, facilities, digitisation and training” as the tools by which shared economic growth and prosperity can be created, he touched on the work of several government and international bodies to promote this aim.
Finally, he advocated for the value of fairer trade: “in order for trade to be a force for good, it must be mutually beneficial”, which means ensuring wealthier nations do not create a dynamic in which “the so-called developed world simply imports raw products from commonwealth partners, adds value by processing them, to simply sell them back to poor farmers, at a profit”.
Digital trade
For many speakers the Commonwealth opportunity aligned closely with opportunities presented by the digitalisation of trade.
Bryan Bletso, partner and director of strategic growth for international from Irwin Mitchell emphasised the advantages that ‘Common Law’ bestows on Commonwealth countries amid the digitalisation drive:
“One of the strengths of the Commonwealth legal system is its adaptability.”
British Standards Institution director general, Dr Scott Steedman, also weighed in on this point by stating the importance of using Commonwealth cohesion to promote a common set of standards and enable data-sharing.
“There has to be a common format” to facilitate data-sharing for sustainability reporting, rules of origin information, or standards in the supply chain.
Supply chain security
Taking on the same topic from a sustainability perspective, Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health’s (IOSH) CEO, spoke about the value that commonality between countries at different points in the supply chain can over in terms of visibility.
Discussing progress towards increased transparency in supply chains, she highlighted that IOSH has access to workers in a range of industries such as farming, fishing and textile work.
This has helped to support broader initiatives to capture supply chain data to share in the form of a QR code, enabling those further down the supply chain to understand the provenance of the goods.
Education
Building on the points raised about improving regulation and cooperations across standards and laws, the Centre for International Education and Collaboration’s director Ivy Heward-Mills, added that awareness and education are paramount in successful implementation:
“Education plays a very key role. It’s one thing having the laws and the agencies but it’s also another thing for organisations and individuals who are key players in the space are aware, so education is a huge component.”
Global partnerships were instrumental to achieving the breadth of education required.
Heward-Mills noted the memorandum of understanding that the centre is signing with IOE&IT to deliver educational programmes on trade, saying that “initiatives like that are going to be very beneficial to the market, especially now that Accra has opened up”.
“There are a lot of opportunities that the Ghanaian business landscape is now open to. How are we going to navigate that landscape safely and leverage all the benefits of having access to all those markets? The only way is to fully understand those rules and understand those laws.”