New joint Trade Policy Unit (TPU) opens for business

19 October 2007

Responding to Gordon Brown’s call for a better alignment between UK’s aid and trade policies it was decided to make some changes to the Government Machinery resulting in:

• A new joint Department for International Development (DFID)-Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) Trade Policy Unit (TPU), bringing together some 70 staff from the two Departments;
• A new Cabinet Committee on trade to give strategic direction and political oversight to UK trade policy, chaired by Douglas Alexander.
• A first ever joint (DFID)- (BERR) Minister for Trade Policy in Gareth Thomas in charge of EU and international trade policy and operational issues, current trade negotiations and trade capacity-building, reporting to both DFID and BERR’s Secretaries of State;

Trade matters immensely to development and to reaching the Millennium Development Goals. It is an engine for growth and can be a powerful tool for poverty alleviation. Over the past thirty years, no country has ever lifted itself out of poverty without also opening its boarders and increasing trade. Equally, the importance of free and fair markets to UK business and our economy is undisputed.

While development has been at the heart of UK trade policy for the last ten years, the above changes will help make our aid and trade policies even more coherent, putting developing countries’ concerns squarely at the fore, while also promoting UK competitiveness.

For more information visit our Trade Policy Unit page

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