In the current context, where China is seen by the UK government as an ‘epoch-defining challenge’ there are clear reasons for working with other powers in the region to reduce the UK’s supply chain dependencies on China. In the rare earth metal space, deepening the relationship between the UK and Vietnam would allow supply chain resilience to be enhanced for one party and investment opportunities to be realised for the other.

This report sets out to explore the importance of the UK-Vietnam trade corridor, and highlights the key reasons for focusing on deepening the Free Trade Agreement that exists between the two countries.