A trade deal with countries in the Indo-Pacific region will be worth billions to the UK economy, according to International Trade Minister Nigel Huddleston.

He was commenting on the UK joining a free trade agreement between countries across the region, known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Mr Huddleston told GB News: “We are talking about billions and billions of pounds of incremental GDP. That will mean more jobs, more economic activity, more growth.

“Some of the nations we have trading relationships with at the moment, but not all of them. Malaysia, for example, this will be the first deal that we’ve got.

“Plus, this deal expands beyond just goods into lots of service areas as well and that’s really important, because of course that’s a huge growth because we’re in an 80% service economy.”

Asked if the deal might irk the EU, in an interview during Breakfast with Stephen Dixon and Anne Diamond, he said: “I don’t think they’d be miffed about it, because they recognise the pragmatism of the UK since we’ve left the EU.

“Remember, we’re in a world now where it’s not about shipping widgets from country A to country B, physical products, all the time, as important as they are.

“We’re an 80% service economy and we have to seek opportunities right the way around the world and with the digital developments, it doesn’t really matter whether they’re right next door or at the other side of the planet, because we can trade in a really fluid, easy way, digitally, in a way that we couldn’t a few years ago and that creates huge opportunities in particular for the UK services sector which is admired around the world.”

He added: “We will always trade with the EU, they’ll always be a really important partner for us in trade, diplomatic and cultural terms and military as well.

“But the rest of the world is out there and now we need to grasp the opportunities that are there as well as within the EU.”