Osborne: Britain to keep 'cool head' as global markets 'heat up'
George Osborne has told ITV News Britain will keep a "cool head" despite stock market turbulence around the world - dismissing fears about the government's ties with China and even insisting that the tumbling value of oil could prove to be a "good thing" for the country.
Earlier this month the chancellor warned of a "dangerous cocktail" of threats to the UK economy, citing war in the Middle East, the economic slowdown in China and dramatic falls in commodity prices.
However, he told Economics Editor Richard Edgar that Britain could even benefit from some of the changes in the economic climate as long as it stuck with "the course we have set out for the country" - pointing to figures this week showing a record number of people in work as evidence that Britain was well-insulated.
Richard Edgar: Has Osborne made a bad bet in China?
Speaking on the fringes of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the chancellor also rejected concerns that the UK had tied its fortunes too closely to those of China, after the Asian country suffered an economic slowdown and uncertainty on its stock market in recent months.
In October, Britain and China signed a controversial £6 billion deal which will see the communist state invest in a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset - something David Cameron said at the time would take Sino-British relations to a "new level".
Critics have also partly blamed China for the British steel crisis, claiming that Chinese "dumping" of cheap steel in to world markets had meant firms based in the UK had little option but to reduce or close down operations - prompting thousands of redundancies.
However, Mr Osborne said "many tens of thousands of jobs in Britain connected directly with trading with China", adding that the issue of "unacceptable" steel dumping had been raised with the Chinese authorities- claiming that Britain's increasingly close relationship with the country allowed it to raise such concerns.