Commonwealth summit gifts are made in... China!
IT WAS the perfect opportunity to promote trade links within the Commonwealth of nations.
So organisers of the Heads of Government Meeting in London were left embarrassed yesterday after handing out to delegates free gifts that were made in China.
Rather than choosing a company from one of the 53 Commonwealth member nations to manufacture thousands of metallic water bottles, summit chiefs picked an American company that uses Chinese factories.
The bottles, which bear the organisation’s logo and the phrase ‘Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018’, also carry the words ‘Made in China’ and ‘Polyconcept’ – a giant US firm based in Pennsylvania.
The gaffe came at the same time as the launch of the Commonwealth Innovation Hub, aimed at promoting business and trade within the club.
Baroness Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, told leaders how she had made a vow on her appointment ‘to put both “common” and “wealth” back into the Commonwealth’.
She said that included ‘the wealth of our common ideas and innovations’.
Dozens of forums were held at the week-long summit to ‘promote trade and investment as a means to drive economic growth, create jobs and ensure the prosperity of our citizens’.
Labour MP Chi Onwurah, vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Commonwealth, said: ‘Clearly the value and benefit of supporting industry and manufacturing within the Commonwealth has been missed out here.’
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said it was ‘strange that they couldn’t find a single Commonwealth country to produce these’.
A Government spokesman said it had been committed to ensuring the summit was ‘as sustainable as possible and reduce the use of single-use plastics’.