KENT-BASED firms wanting to boost trade with China are set to benefit from a new office opened by Gordon Brown in Beijing.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer opened the CBI office in the Chinese capital on October 14. It is the employers’ organisation’s third overseas office, joining those in Brussels and Washington.

The CBI aims to give British business a powerful presence at the centre of the world’s most exciting economy.

The new office will lobby on behalf of British business and also feed data about trade opportunities back to the UK and through regional directors like Malcolm Hyde, south east CBI chief based in Sevenoaks.

Speaking in Beijing, CBI director-general Sir Digby Jones said: "The greatest challenges facing the UK - globalisation and the rapidly rising economies of China and the Far East - must be recognised as an opportunity not a threat.

"The chance to do business with one of the fastest expanding trading nations in the world is there to be taken."

The CBI said that the rate of Chinese economic growth was leaving the rest of the world in the shade. It claimed that while the world doubles its trade every decade, China doubles its trade every three years.

And while the UK economy is currently growing at about two per cent, China’s grows by 10 per cent each year.

Sir Digby added: "Only one per cent of UK trade is currently with China and while the UK imports nearly £6 billion of Chinese goods it only exports around £1 billion. That has got to change."