A Note From SBJBC on the Agreement
Summary
On 20 May 2026 the United Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announced the conclusion of negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). The agreement was reached in London between the Minister of State for Trade Policy, Sir Chris Bryant, and the Secretary-General of the GCC, Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, and makes the United Kingdom the first G7 country to conclude a comprehensive trade agreement with the bloc, which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Department for Business and Trade set out the following headline estimates:
- an increase in UK gross domestic product of around £3.7 billion a year, and in real wages of around £1.9 billion a year, in the long run when measured against 2040 projections.
- an increase in bilateral trade of 19.8 per cent, worth an estimated £15.5 billion a year in the long run.
- the removal of an estimated £580 million a year in duties on current UK exports to the GCC once fully implemented, of which £360 million is removed on the first day the agreement is in force.
These figures are drawn from the government’s modelling and its conclusion summary published on 20 May. For reference, the gross domestic product gain is equivalent to around 0.1 per cent of UK output.
The SBJBC is made up of private sector members on both sides of the relationship, and this agreement is another growth trajectory of the UK-Saudi strategic relationship and represents the next stage in the maturation of the UK-Saudi trade corridor. Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the GCC and the core market for most of the SBJBC’s members, and the sectors the agreement covers, from financial and professional services to advanced manufacturing, healthcare, clean energy and digital trade, are those in which British and Saudi companies are heavily engaged in, and the agreement will only help intensify these activities.
To read the full article: [UK-GCC FTA Agreement note by SBJBC.docx]
