UK confident of good trade ties with Oman post-Brexit: Liam Fox

Business Monday 21/November/2016 22:28 PM
By: Times News Service
UK confident of good trade ties with Oman post-Brexit: Liam Fox

Muscat: Britain is positive about maintaining its long-standing relations with Oman post-Brexit, according to Dr. Liam Fox, Member of the British House of Commons, who has been the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade since 2016.
Fox came to Oman to strengthen ties between the two countries. “It’s a pleasure to be back here in Oman, it’s been a few months since I was last here, and I like to begin by congratulating His Majesty and the people of Oman in celebrating the 46th National Day, it’s great pleasure to be here to join in that time,” Fox added.
“We are confident because what we want post-Brexit is to ensure we are even more open for international business, my job is to ensure first of all that we have more British export than we do at the present. At the moment only about 11 per cent of British companies actually sell goods or services abroad and I want to increase that and so I want to find trading partners where we can do that.
“Oman is a long standing partner of the United Kingdom now if we can also be ensured Britain exporting some of its service capability- financial services, banking services, accountancy and so on, this sort of support services that help deepen and economy then that is as I said it’s a win for both of us.
“Just been done in Duqm to look at the great strategic vision that is being shown there and to witness the signing of the agreement between Babcock and the Oman Drydock Company. It is a great partnership, and I think that the fact that the Royal Navy is going to be using that facility is testament to the fact that we normally have a very strong defence relationship at the present time but that’s going to continue into the future,” he added.
Babcock International Group plc is a British multinational corporation headquartered in the United Kingdom, which specialises in support services managing complex assets and infrastructure in safety- and mission-critical environments
“The second element is of course our very strong economic relationship, and that the UK is such a large investor in Oman and we have a billion pound of trade between us. We want to ensure that the relationship strengthens overtime and to ensure that the United Kingdom is able to give some of the skills in our service sector that will help Oman improve and deepen it’s economy even further so that the trading relationship can go from strength to strength and that we can both become markets for one another goods and services over time.”
He further highlighted the prospect of Wrightbus, an Irish based public transportation company fixing public transportation deals with Oman, “So as well as we are working with companies like Babcock, which we saw today, I have also been talking to Wrightbus who I hope maybe successful in getting one of the contracts for public transport for here in Muscat, providing a very environmentally friendly and efficient transport in the city.
“I hope that we will be able to deepen all these relationships in security and in economic closeness not just with Oman as a bilateral relationship but with the GCC in general, we see the GCC as being a very important strategic partner globally for the United Kingdom and I think that if we are able to achieve prosperity that bring political stability, then that also brings greater security which is not only good for the region itself but good for global security, including that of the UK.”