Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to ease barriers to exports for medium-sized businesses in Solihull constituency.
Answered by Marcus Fysh
Through the Export Strategy, the Department for International Trade (DIT) is targeting the barriers affecting small-and-medium sized businesses (SMEs) by providing a single point of contact for businesses who export or wish to do so. SMEs also benefit from the Internationalisation Fund, having so far attracted around 4,400 applications and allocated around £21M in funding.
DIT work with businesses to reduce trade barriers and secure world-class free trade agreements, supporting British business to take full advantage of trade opportunities.
DIT has directly assisted Solihull based Evac+Chair, a globally renowned manufacturer of evacuation chairs, with market access issues into both Spain and USA resulting in their business growth.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether any tariffs apply to imports of processed coffee as of 2 September 2022.
Answered by James Duddridge
Coffee tariffs range between 0.00% and 8.00% depending on characteristics such as whether the coffee is roasted or decaffeinated and they apply to imports that do not qualify for preferential treatment, for example under a Free Trade Agreement or through the UK Generalised Scheme of Preference (GSP). Businesses can check which tariffs apply to their goods on the Online Tariff Tool (https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff).
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to increase foreign direct investment into (a) Solihull constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Mike Freer
The Department for International Trade’s regional teams engage with Metro Mayors, local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), local authorities, and our overseas network to promote Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in England, supporting 925 single site projects and creating 28,012 new jobs in 2020-21.
The Department leads several activities promoting FDI across the UK through mechanisms such as the Investment Atlas, our High Potential Opportunities Programme, and the GREAT global trade campaign.
We continue to promote Solihull’s investment capabilities through schemes such as Arden Cross. This is one of the UK’s largest development projects, which will be crucial to the Government’s levelling up agenda.