The Adam Smith Institute's Research Director, Sam Bowman, was quoted in CityAM explaining the benefits of TTIP for the UK economy

The potential for huge gains from TTIP should perhaps come as no surprise considering the US and the EU together account for nearly half of world GDP.

Sam Bowman, research director at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

For all the talk of emerging markets, the US and Europe are still where the money is economically and will be for many decades.

Many policy researchers and analysts argue Europe can ill-afford to drop the baton in its badly-needed quest for competitiveness.

Bowman told City A.M.:

TTIP is the best thing in international trade for years. Unlike the ambitious, but ultimately doomed, Doha trade talks, which aim to lower trade barriers in dozens of countries at once, including many that have no fundamental attachment to the idea of free trade, TTIP focuses on two parties that are both basically on board with the benefits of trade.

Both the US and EU have tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade for political reasons (ie to protect special interests), it's true, but both are also pretty fundamentally of the view that trade enriches everyone. Indeed, as much as we like to bash the EU, this is one of the cornerstones of the vision behind the Union.

Read the full article here.