Keir Starmer hails trade and investment deals as trip to China concludes

Sir Keir Starmer will wrap up his trip to China hailing billions of pounds in trade agreements and investment in the UK by companies including the makers of the viral hit Labubu dolls.

The Prime Minister leaves Shanghai on Saturday after a three-day visit during which he has repeatedly said that his decision to re-engage with China will deliver benefits for the British people.

Sir Keir said: “We are bringing stability, clarity and a long-term strategy to how we engage with China, so we can bring home the benefits for businesses and for working people.

“Engaging with China is how we secure growth for British businesses, support good jobs at home and protect our national security.”

The heavily trade-focused visit saw Sir Keir fly to China with more than 50 representatives of British businesses and cultural institutions.

Downing Street said the visit had secured £2.2 billion in export deals and market access worth another £2.3 billion over the next five years as well as hundreds of millions of pounds of investment by Chinese companies.

Among those companies was Pop Mart, makers of the hit toy Labubu, which has pledged to open seven stores in the UK including a flagship outlet on London’s Oxford Street.

Birmingham and Cardiff have also been earmarked for stores.

Asked whether he was familiar with the toy, Sir Keir told ITV News he had been given one on the trip, adding: “I don’t think it’ll last long with my children.”

Meanwhile, car manufacturer Chery also announced it would establish its European headquarters in Liverpool, already home to a Jaguar Land Rover plant.

And on the cultural side, the World Snooker Tour said it had secured a new event in two Chinese cities bringing in up to £15 million.

The deals follow the announcement on Thursday that Chinese tariffs on whiskey would be halved, a move expected to be worth £250 million to the UK over the next five years, and an agreement on visa-free travel to China for British nationals.

Sir Keir said the reduced tariffs would come into effect from Monday. Details of the visa scheme are yet to be confirmed, but Downing Street said it had “full confidence” it would be implemented.

Beyond trade and investment, the Prime Minister also scored a political victory when President Xi Jinping agreed to lift Chinese sanctions on six British parliamentarians.

Sir Keir told the BBC the agreement showed engaging with China allowed him to raise “difficult, sensitive issues which you can’t raise if you are not in the room”.

But he continues to face domestic pressure to challenge China further on human rights issues, including the detention of British national and Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai and the treatment of the Uighur minority.

In a statement, the previously sanctioned MPs and peers said they took “no comfort” in the decision to lift restrictions on them while these issues remained unresolved.

Closer ties with China could also cause problems for the UK with America, where President Donald Trump criticised Sir Keir’s visit, saying it was “dangerous” to do business with Beijing.

In interviews in Shanghai on Friday, Sir Keir brushed off the criticism, saying Mr Trump had been “talking more about Canada” than the UK, while Britain and America remained “very close allies”.

The Prime Minister will end his visit to China with meetings with senior local Chinese Communist Party officials in Shanghai on Saturday morning.

He will then return home via Japan, where he will meet the country’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi for a working dinner.