United Kingdom Prime Minister’s trade envoy to ASEAN Richard Graham has renewed Britain’s support to the Philippines’ energy transition and acceleration of renewables, the UK Embassy in Manila said Thursday.

The commitment was made during Graham’s four-day working visit to the Philippines from April 24 to 27.

The UK Embassy said the envoy also personally relayed his support during a reception hosted for key interlocutors in the Philippines’ offshore wind agenda, including Department of Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara this week.

“At the event, Mr. Graham reaffirmed the UK’s support to the Philippines’ energy transition shift and acceleration of renewables. The UK has been providing strong government and industry support to the Philippine energy sector including the recent successful offshore wind study visit in the UK last February attended by key Philippines government officials,” it said.

Graham cited trade and investment opportunities in the country and renewed commitment to build on ongoing collaboration in the areas of offshore wind development as well as cyber and Al where the UK is keen to explore and do more in the country.

Graham also called on Philippine Space Agency Director General Joel Marciano, Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista, senior officials from the Department of Agriculture, and the private sector.

Against the backdrop of the recent launch of the UK’s International Tech Strategy in March, Graham likewise engaged with the Philippine delegation joining this year’s London Tech Week, a global celebration of technology, innovative thinkers, and pursuit of technology.

The International Tech Strategy aims to strengthen tech partnerships and support development with focus on critical technologies of tomorrow including Al, quantum, semiconductors, telecoms and engineering biology.

Speaking at the end of his visit, Graham said: “As always, it is a great pleasure to visit the Philippines even more so with the growing and stronger trade relationship, with bilateral trade up more than 30 percent in the last year to 2.3 billion pounds.”

“I look forward to working with many of those that I have met this week to continue to ensure that the UK-Philippines trade and investment relation ship continues to go from strength to strength,” he added.

The Embassy said this visit is a “strong demonstration” of the UK’s intent to further bolster trade relations with countries in the Indo-Pacific, including the Philippines. (PNA)