Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the UK government is nearing a trade pact with six Gulf nations

Alliance News: Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the UK government is nearing a trade pact with six Gulf nations, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as its next major deal.

input: Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the UK government is nearing a trade pact with six Gulf nations, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as its next major deal.

She told the BBC the agreement would be the government’s “next deal” as it looks to continue to boost post-Brexit trade ties.

Reeves suggested economic growth would be strengthened through recent trade deals with the US, the EU and India.

“We are now working on our next trade deal with a group of six nations in the Gulf,” she said.

“We are hoping to get that done in the next few months.”

Reeves added: “We are going to continue to build on the great progress that we have made on trade deals around the world.

“We have now completed our trade deal with the US, we have completed our trade deal with the EU, and we just completed our trade deal with India.

“So we are going to continue to build on that.”

The chancellor said the government was focused on growing the economy and creating jobs.

“We are committed to doing everything we can to support businesses and workers through this challenging period,” she said.

“We are also investing heavily in research and development, and we are working to attract foreign investment to the UK.”

Reeves’ comments came as new figures showed the UK economy grew 0.5% in the second quarter of 2025, slowing from 0.8% growth in the first quarter.

The Office for National Statistics said the slowdown was driven by a decline in household spending, which fell 0.2%, and a slowdown in business investment, which rose 0.1%. However, government spending rose 0.4%.

Economists had expected the economy to grow 0.4% in the second quarter.

Despite the slowdown, the UK economy grew 1.5% in the year to June 2025, the fastest rate of growth since the second quarter of 2024.

The ONS said the figures showed the UK economy was still recovering from the coronavirus pandemic, but faced several challenges, including high inflation and the war in Ukraine.

“The latest ONS figures show that the UK economy grew slowly in the second quarter of 2025, with household spending declining and business investment slowing,” said ONS director of economic statistics, Andy Chart.

“Looking at the broader picture, the UK recovered to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels of output in the second quarter of 2025, while output has now risen by 1.5% over the last year, the fastest rate of growth since the second quarter of 2024.”output: Given that every deal this government does seems to cost more than it delivers, one is already in the brace position regarding a potential Gulf States sell out. At least we are fast running out of territories to get ripped off by. That said, perhaps a trade deal paying £10bn a year to buy snow from Antarctica in return for UK rainwater could work.

Coinsilium Group (AQUIS:COIN), the Web3 investor, advisor, and venture builder, provided an update on its Bitcoin treasury strategy and its wholly owned Gibraltar subsidiary, Forza! Gibraltar Limited, which was established to implement Coinsilium’s dedicated Bitcoin-focused treasury operations. As an initial step in the build-out of Forza’s Bitcoin holdings, the Company intends to transfer 5 Bitcoin from Coinsilium’s existing reserves into Forza’s treasury. After raising gross proceeds of £1.5 million, the Company also intends to allocate an initial amount of no less than 10 Bitcoin from these proceeds to Forza’s treasury.

COIN is certainly getting on with the job of building up its Bitcoin Strategy, and it goes for the Microstrategy approach. All of this should be very supportive to the stock in the wake of last week’s fundraise.

Progressive Equity Research has been commissioned by Forterra (FORT) to produce ongoing research coverage. A new research document has been published this morning, and is freely available to UK investors. Research note summary: ‘Encouraging start’ to year – upgrades later? Forterra has issued an upbeat AGM statement, pointing to a 22% Y/Y increase in revenue for the first four months of FY25 (our estimate for the full year, +8%), with ‘strong' performances in both divisions driven by an uplift in housebuilding.

“Progressive is an equity research and investor engagement company. FCA authorised and regulated, the firm has a 15-strong team of highly experienced analysts. We provide Institutional grade research and connect companies with investors across every sector of the market.” 15 people is a lot of National Insurance payments.

Vodafone Group (VOD) announced its FY25 Preliminary Results. The company said results were in line with expectations and growth outlook. It CEO said “Since I set out my plans to transform Vodafone two years ago, Vodafone has changed. We