Dr Fox is on a three day tour in the United States – his first overseas trip since being appointed under British Prime Minister Theresa May.

He sought to hose down concerns about Britain's planned exit from the European Union and reiterated the Prime Minister's pledge that that "Brexit means Brexit".

"There will be no backtracking. No second guessing. No second referendum," Dr Fox said in a speech at the Sage Summit in Chicago on Tuesday.

"Today my message to you is simple; the United Kingdom is open for business like never before."

UK will play on its strengths

To ensure that the UK would continue to attract investment, it would have to play on its strengths.

This included a highly skilled workforce with low levels of industrial disruption, a strong tertiary system, a deregulated economy and a competitive tax system, he said.

"Our corporate tax rates are amongst the lowest in the G20 and are set to get even lower," he said.

Leaving the EU would give the UK greater control over trade policy.  "We will have an opportunity to make our tax systems even more competitive and to take an axe to red tape," he said.

Dr Fox's comments follow UK Chancellor George Osborne earlier this month pledging that he wanted to cut corporate tax to less than 15 per cent. This would make Britain more competitive with Ireland where the tax rate is 12.5 per cent and home to some of the world's biggest multinationals.

Governments keen to strike deals

At the summit Dr Fox announced the UK government would be opening three new offices: Minneapolis inMinnesota, Raleigh in North Carolina and San Diego in California.

Dr Fox said he had been talking to his foreign counterparts who are keen to strike deals with Britain.

"We have nothing to fear from …breaking out on our own."

The world was moving away from an era where multilateral agreements dominated the landscape to one where one where bilateral agreements were becoming much more common.

He said many issues had impacted the historic referendum vote on June 23 where British people voted to leave the EU.

"Sovereignty of governments was certainly one, immigration was another, and economics and trade played a part."

Dr Fox said the European Union had an interest in ensuring Brexit worked, given that most member states could not afford to lose access to UK markets.

He said that of the top 10 export markets where the UK had a trade surplus, only one, Ireland, was in the EU.

The UK had been an expanding market and EU countries had now built a trade surplus with the UK worth 70 billion pounds.

The size of the trade surplus was "why it's in the interests of fellow European Union members that we leave in a way that creates minimal disruption."

The writer is in Chicago as a guest of the Sage Summit