Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador Sir Peter Westmacott and Eric Johnson, chairman of the World Trade Center board of directors, shared the stage in the JCB auditorium Friday morning to talk about Georgia’s special relationship with the United Kingdom.
In 2012, that included $1.1 billion in exports by Georgia to the U.K.
Westmacott, whose visit was not disclosed publicly in advance for security reasons, is the first U.K. ambassador to come to Savannah in recent memory.
In front of a small audience of area business leaders, Westmacott and Johnson talked about the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would eliminate tariffs and reduce regulatory barriers between the European Union and the United States.
If fully implemented, economists have predicted the partnership could add more than $100 billion a year to the U.S. economy.
“Our relationship with the United States is indispensable, and this partnership will only serve to strengthen our economic bond,” Westmacott said, adding that, with a difficult global economic situation, it’s important to seize every opportunity to create growth and jobs.
With multilateral agreements stalled, going for a bilateral agreement between the two biggest trading entities will further boost international trade, he said.
The TTIP focuses on two main issues — eliminating tariffs and reducing regulatory barriers.
The tariffs the U.S. and U.K. currently impose on each other’s imports are low, with an average of 5.2 percent for the EU and 3.5 percent for the U.S., according to World Trade Organization estimates.
“But the volume of our trade is so large that every tariff we remove — even the smallest ones — will result in millions of savings to companies,” he said.
The U.K. was recently identified by World Trade Center Savannah as one of five target countries for doing business in 2013.
“This certainly reinforces the research of WTC Savannah regarding the importance of the U.K. to our area,” Johnson said.
“Not only are we looking at reducing tariffs, we want to eliminate unnecessary or overlapping regulations.”
One way this can be done, Westmacott said, is by defining mutual standards.
“In industrial sectors such as automotives, chemical, pharmaceutical and medical devices, there is clear scope for regulatory convergence.”
An ambitious and comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership could bring significant economic gains as a whole for the U.S. and EU, at $123 billion and $155 billion a year respectively, once the agreement is fully implemented.
Overall, the extra bilateral trade between the two blocs, together with their increased trade with other partners, would represent a rise in total EU exports of 6 percent and 8 percent in U.S. exports, according to Westmacott’s numbers.
This would mean an additional $285 billion and $310 billion worth of sales of goods and services for EU- and U.S.-based producers, respectively.
Negotiations are expected to start this summer and be finalized within 18 months, he said.
Atlanta-based British Consul General Annabelle Malins, traveling with the ambassador, said the partnership will be especially important to this area.
“The southeast United States can gain a great deal from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’s job-creation potential,” she said. “However, for these negotiations to succeed, decision-makers in Washington will need to hear from their constituents.”
Westmacott agreed.
“It will take a grassroots effort to help facilitate this.”
The conversation was followed by a factory tour and performance by JCB’s “Dancing Diggers.”
BY THE NUMBERS
$2 billion: annual revenue produced by U.K. companies in Georgia
23,000: jobs created
10: U.K. companies in the region