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Ranil Jayawardena


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A SUCCESSFUL UK-India trade deal could see a £300 million boost to the economy of the West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire in the long term as a result of new opportunities, particularly for manufacturers of cars and parts, UK minister for International Trade Ranil Jayawardena said recently.

India is on course to become the third-largest economy in the world by 2050, and the government hopes UK-India trade will double over the course of this decade. “There would be huge opportunities from this deal for the West Midlands. A huge number of jobs have already been created in the West Midlands as a result of investment from India with almost 30,000 in the region in 2019 employed because of Indian investment,” Jayawardena, one of the strong advocates of the deal said.

Jayawardena assumed the role in May 2020. In post-Brexit Britain, his role assumes greater significance. “A Global Britain who stands tall as a fierce champion of the free and fair, rules-based, international trade system, that not only gives us the weapons to fight this pandemic but will be the key to our future prosperity. A Global Britain who regains her buccaneering belief as a dynamic trading superpower, with a red-tape slashing spirit and cutting-edge trade support,” Jayawardena recently wrote on his website.

Jayawardena’s department has been responsible for non-EU trade and the minister said that his department has already secured trade agreements with 63 countries, most recently with countries, including Mexico, Singapore, and Vietnam.

He was first elected as the Member of Parliament for North East Hampshire in May 2015 and was re-elected in 2017 and 2019. Jayawardena was selected in an open primary as the parliamentary candidate in 2013.

He went on to be elected as the MP for the constituency at the 2015 general election, with the largest

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