OFFICIAL – SENSITIVE (UK eyes only)
agreement will contain language on (online) information sharing – again specifying what types of information parties will commit to providing but retaining flexibility on how this is provided. UK Invitation to the Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE) 1. Pat Kirwan (PK) provided an overview of the 10th Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE), that will take place 21-28 October 2018, showcasing key Northern California destinations that are helping to move the success that is Silicon Valley’s Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem across the Golden State. The website will go live on Monday 16 July. 2. The US and the Organisation of American States (OAS) extended the invitation to the UK to attend the 10th Americas Competitiveness Exchange (ACE). 3. PK advised that attendance is expected to be at Assistant-Secretary or Director-General (i.e. an appropriate decision-making) level. Attendees will visit each of six sites (San Francisco and Silicon Valley; Monterey Bay Area; Santa Cruz; Salinas Valley; Fresno; and Sacramento) with the objective of providing an opportunity to extend potential partnerships and cluster to cluster collaboration. The US advised that an example aim may be to attend with view to securing a partnership (the US agreed to send details of past examples). 4. KM and Angelina Cannizzaro (AC) advised US colleagues that the invitation should be forwarded in the first instance to Department of International Trade (DIT) Permanent Secretary Antonia Romeo and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Permanent Secretary Alex Chisholm. Actions • US to issue invitation to ACE to DIT Permanent Secretary Romeo and BEIS Permanent Secretary Chisholm by the end of the week; UK to respond; •
US to provide example details of partnerships created through the ACE process.
Digital Trade and the Third UK-US SME Dialogue 1. DIT Services Team (Chris Woodward (CW)) and Robert Tanner (USTR (RT)) joined the Working Group for a discussion on digital trade and the prospect of a digital trade focussed SME Dialogue in late 2018. 2. The US emphasised the importance of digital trade (e-commerce) for SMEs, noting that many SMEs are becoming involved as digital exporters (either by accident or design), due to the strong opportunities it offers for allowing small businesses to export more easily and in greater volume. While SMEs engaged in exporting will usually export a single good to a single market overseas, those exporting through e-commerce platforms will export to 19 or 20 different markets. The ecommerce market between the UK and the US is one of the most intensive. 3. CS noted that we are working to do more to support SMEs to export more – including by exploiting opportunities provided by e-commerce. We have produced resources – such as the Doing Business in the US and UK brochure and IP Toolkits – to inform SMEs of their options and available support and will be working together to produce an e-commerce resource (see above. 4. CS suggested a digital trade focussed third SME Dialogue to be held in the US later this year [Provisional title: SME Exporters Taking Advantage of Digital Trade]. She noted that this would involve a broader discussion of the role of digital trade as relevant to SMEs, as well as offering opportunity to launch the e-commerce resource – intended to raise awareness of the possibilities of e-commerce for promoting business. The event will marry discussion of policy areas first, 10