Govt expresses positive attitude on free trade agreement talks with the UK

China is willing to take a positive attitude to carry out free trade agreement talks with the United Kingdom if it wants to further deepen its business ties with China, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.

Zhang Shaogang, the ministry's director-general of the department of international trade and economic affairs, said as the UK is a major world economy, China would respect its wishes if it wanted to launch free trade agreement talks.

Technically, when it does leave the European Union after final talks with the European Commission, the UK government will be able to agree free trade agreements with other economies, even if it will no longer benefit from the EU's free trade pacts with 53 countries and regions.