UK to sign commercial deals worth over £2.4 billion with China

UK would sign commercial deals worth over £2.4 billion with China as chancellor George Osborne prepares to meet the country's vice premier Ma Kai in London later today, International Business Times reported.

The deals would include a $1 billion Malaysian oil terminal joint venture and a £200 million project for the development of nursing homes and vocational training schools China.

UK would also refund visa costs for up to 25,000 Chinese visitors on organised tours between 2015 and 2017, according to Reuters.

A meeting between Osborne and Ma is slated during the sixth annual UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue.

The Bank of England earlier allowed the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to open a wholesale branch in the UK. With a wholesale banking licence, ICBC, China's largest lender, can handle investments and assets only and is barred from offering retail services, such as savings and loans.

UK had been looking to attract Chinese banks and offshore trade in the yuan, to bolster the position of London in global forex trade.

Osborne had also said he wanted to see London explore connections with Chinese stock exchanges and had in June declared that UK would provide guarantees for transactions denominated in the renminbi.

Osborne would be meeting Ma as part of an annual Anglo-Chinese economic and financial dialogue, which took place in Beijing last year, The Yorkshire Post reported.

The Conservative-led government had made an effort to boost exports to China since 2010, partly due to growth remaining slow in many of UK's main export markets in continental Europe.

With exports to China worth £12.4 billion last year making up 4 per cent of the total, UK imported £33.4 billion of goods from China over the same period.

UK and China signed an agreement in March to set up a clearing service for renminbi trading in London, which was competing with Luxembourg, New York, Paris and Frankfurt to become the top western offshore yuan centre.