Chancellor Rachel Reeves is hoping that improving UK-China relationship will lead to a raft of opportunities, including sustainable finance cooperation.

The Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) creates a wide-ranging set of trading opportunities across several areas. As part of this, Bank of China London Branch has announced plans to issue an inaugural overseas sovereign green bond, to be used to finance environmentally sustainable projects, in London during 2025.

The UK and China have reiterated their “recognition of each other as primary partners in green finance, for capital raising, product innovation, and international thought leadership”. Both sides agreed that the UK-China Green Finance Taskforce will continue to promote future collaboration in a range of areas, including on sustainability disclosures and establishing new workstreams on transition finance and on biodiversity finance.

Richard Oldfield, group chief executive, Schroders, added that better trading relationships could open up funding for green technology: “More recently, we have started to manage money invested into Chinese renewable infrastructure, enabling our clients to meet their emissions targets through investing in high-quality clean generation in China. It is the largest renewables market in the world, and we are focused on enabling the transition from fossil to renewable generation.”

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