Britain's Treasury chief is travelling to China this weekend in a bid to boost economic and financial cooperation between the countries, as the UK's Labour government seeks to reset strained ties with Beijing. Rachel Reeves will seek stability in the United Kingdom's relationship with China and aim to help grow Britain's lackluster economy, the Treasury said on Friday. She will travel to Beijing and Shanghai and meet with her Chinese government counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng. A focus of Reeves' trip is reviving the China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue annual bilateral talks that have been suspended since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and deteriorating relations in recent years. The British side wants the dialogue to help bring down barriers that UK businesses face when looking to export or expand to China. The talks were shelved after ties soured following a series of spying allegations from both sides, China's support for Russia in the Ukraine war and a crackdown on
The UK on Thursday announced the world's first new sanctions regime to combat people smuggling crime rings and block the illicit finance fuelling such operations as part of measures to crack down on illegal migration. The government said the new standalone sanctions are dedicated to targeting irregular migration and organised immigration crime, which will allow the authorities to target individuals and entities enabling dangerous journeys. The new sanctions regime is expected to come into force within the year as experts from across government work with law enforcement and operational Home Office colleagues to stem finance flows at their source and deter smugglers facilitating irregular migratory movements, including dangerous sea crossings across Europe. We must dismantle the crime gangs facilitating breaches of our borders. By crippling illicit finance rings allowing smugglers to traffic vulnerable people across Europe, we will deliver on our Plan for Change and secure UK borders,
The yield on 30-year British gilts rose sharply on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, outpacing increases for other governments' bonds and hitting its highest since August 1998 at 5.383 per cent
While India and US have optimistic outlooks going into 2025, Germany and UK may see sluggish growth
Three of the BoE's nine-person Monetary Policy Committee - Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden and external members Swati Dhingra and Alan Taylor - voted for a quarter-point rate cut to 4.5 per cent
Gross domestic product shrank 0.1 per cent month-on-month in October, as it did in September, the Office for National Statistics said
Britain has long lacked candidates to fill jobs, a problem made worse by the 2016 Brexit vote and Covid-19, with vacancies higher than their level before the pandemic
Monthly consumer confidence index from market research firm GfK rose to -17 in December from -18 in November, the highest reading since August
BoE has cut Bank Rate only twice from a 16-year peak, helping to make sterling the only currency from the Group of 10 leading economies that has not fallen against the US dollar in 2024
Starmer's reset moment, including six 'milestones' designed to be tools to measure the government's progress, instead triggered more disquiet and confusion about his strategy
In her resignation letter shared by Starmer's office early on Friday, Haigh said she was standing down as the issue 'will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government'
"The rise in National Insurance and the stark lowering of the threshold caught us all off guard," CBI Chief Executive Rain Newton-Smith said as the organisation met for its annual conference
A monthly rise in sales in September was also revised down to 0.1 per cent from a previous estimate of a 0.3 per cent gain
The increase was the biggest month-to-month rise in the annual CPI rate since October 2022
British Treasury chief Rachel Reeves is announcing 40 billion pounds in tax hikes in her first budget, saying she will use the money to invest, invest, invest and get the economy growing. Reeves is delivering the first budget from the UK's Labour Party government since it took power in July. She says the tax increases are needed because of the economic black hole left by the previous Conservative government. She told lawmakers, I am restoring stability to our public finances and rebuilding our public services. The centre-left party was elected July 4 after promising to banish years of turmoil and scandal under Conservative governments, get Britain's economy growing and restore frayed public services.
The pound dropped to as low as $1.2984, dipping under the $1.30 level for the first time since Aug. 20, after data showing the rate of annual consumer price inflation dropped to 1.7 per cent in Sep
BoE cut borrowing costs in August but kept them on hold at its September meeting, saying it wanted to see further signs that inflation pressures were abating
Tarrant Parsons, RICS' head of market analytics, said the reduction in borrowing costs in August had helped to recover buyer demand
Years of Brexit-linked political chaos may have ended with his Labour Party's big election win, but the near-collapse of utility Thames Water has unsettled investors
The figures did not include recent pay deals struck between the new Labour government, elected last month in a landslide victory, and public sector workers including junior doctors