'We must look to the stars for business' – Black Country boss explains why space race is an opportunity

While Great Britain may have finished seventh in the medal table at the recent Paris Olympics, the latest report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development showed that the UK had surged to fourth place on a list of the world’s largest exporters.

This ranking placed the country behind only China, the US and Germany in terms of the total value of exported goods and services, with Japan, France and the Netherlands all being overtaken based on the most recent data from 2022.

With the UK Board of Trade estimating that jobs connected to exporting pay on average 7% more than non-exporting equivalents, this growth in the value of exports, now totalling £855 billion in the data, is certainly to be welcomed.

It should be noted that the UK is still running a total trade deficit, importing more goods and services than we export. However, the growth in exports should surely offer some grounds for cautious optimism about the ongoing prospects for the UK economy in a post Brexit world.

It is within this context that Jonathan Reynolds, the new Secretary of State for Business and Trade, has swiftly highlighted international commerce as a key opportunity for stimulating growth within the UK economy.

Within weeks of settling into his new role, Reynolds has outlined plans to publish a new trade strategy, designed to work ‘in harmony’ with the government’s industrial strategy.

Reynolds has highlighted six partners as a focus for trade negotiations, with the somewhat eclectic group comprising India, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey and the Gulf