Commonwealth advantage boosts prosperity for league of 52 countries
Trade and investment ministers of the 52 Commonwealth countries gather in London this week to launch an economic-growth agenda
Commonwealth trade and investment ministers meet this week for the first time in London’s Marlborough House, the Commonwealth HQ. Their two-day meeting, jointly organised with the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, will kick-start an ambitious agenda for growth across the Commonwealth’s 52 member countries. Our challenge is to ensure that countries are best positioned to harness the "Commonwealth advantage" of a shared common language, similar institutions and familiar legal systems, which means that Commonwealth countries tend to trade 20% more between themselves and generate 10% more foreign direct investment with each other compared to their non-Commonwealth partners. Intra-Commonwealth trade is projected to surpass $1-trillion in the next five years and to reach nearly $2-trillion by 2030, even under a low-growth scenario. Nevertheless, recent research by the Commonwealth secretariat (Revitalising world trade: issues and topics for the Commonwealth to be published o...
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