Asked by: Lord Barker of Battle (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which countries were subject to trade sanctions in (1) 2015, (2) 2016, and (3) 2017.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK implements a wide variety of UN, EU and OSCE sanctions regimes, of which many contain arms embargoes and other trade restrictions.
In 2015, the countries subject to such trade restrictions were: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burma, China, Central African Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, the Cote d’Ivoire, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine (Crimea), Yemen, Zimbabwe. Trade restrictions were also in place against certain terrorist organisations.
In 2016, UN sanctions regimes relating to the Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia were lifted including all trade restrictions. In 2017, the EU introduced a sanctions regime including trade restrictions against Venezuela. The other sanctions regimes outlined above remained in place.
Further information is on the Department for International Trade pages on gov.uk.