Press release: New Minister for Trade and Export Promotion starts at the Department for International Trade

As a former Business Ambassador for UK Trade and Investment with a strong background in global business, Baroness Fairhead brings a wealth of business and economic experience to the department.

Her responsibilities will include building strong relationships with UK exporting companies, helping smaller businesses export to the global market and overseeing the GREAT campaign to boost the UK’s global trade.

Baroness Fairhead will also bring together expertise from across government and the private sector to create a new export strategy that establishes a renewed culture of exporting across the UK.

The strategy will ensure the government puts the right financial, practical and promotional support in place to allow businesses to make the most of global opportunities and generate wealth for the whole of the UK.

As lead Minister for UK Export Finance, her work will put finance at the heart of trade promotion, and improve support for businesses to take advantage of new opportunities when we leave the EU – a key aim of the government’s Industrial Strategy.

Baroness Fairhead starts her new role at DIT as the UK’s trade deficit narrowed by £2.4 billion in the second quarter of 2017, this largely being driven by a narrowing of the trade in goods deficit.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, said:

As an international economic department our role is to promote the huge benefits of trade and help businesses make the most of global opportunities.

Baroness Fairhead’s wealth of business experience will help the UK boost exports, forge closer trading links with new markets, and ensure more companies can respond to the enormous appetite for British goods and services.

Minister for Trade and Export Promotion, Baroness Rona Fairhead, said:

I’m honoured to be appointed as the Trade and Export Minister at a time of unprecedented new opportunities for UK trade.

There is huge potential for growth as UK businesses meet the global demand for their world-class goods and services; I look forward to working with businesses of all sizes so we can forge a new culture of exporting.