UK’s Brexit minister credits free trade for India’s growth

LONDON: Remaking the case for free trade first espoused by Adam Smith in 1776, international trade secretary Liam Fox on Thursday credited India’s growth and lifting

LONDON: Remaking the case for free trade first espoused by Adam Smith in 1776, international trade secretary Liam Fox on Thursday credited India’s growth and lifting many of its people above the poverty line to the adoption the principles and practices of free trade.

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Delivering a speech in Manchester, Fox, who is one of three key ministers tasked with negotiating Br exit, said the critics of free trade would do well to evaluate the failures of alternative economic models and compare them with the successes of India, China and Vietnam.“Any economist worth his or her salt can see that free trade has been one of the most potent liberators of the world’ s poor. In 1993, around 45% of India’s population sat below the poverty line; in 2011 it was 22% – and it is no coincidence that India embraced global is at ion and started to liberalise ”, he said.

Dwelling on the benefits of free trade, Fox said he was certain that Tata’s investment in Britain’s automotive sector benefited the Indian car industry, just as UK investment in the Indian chemical sector allowed Britain’s pharma firms to draw on new techniques.

“That is the glorious joy of free trade – it is not a zero-sum game, it really can be win-win”, he said.