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Nine out of 10 UK exporting manufacturers are facing challenges trading with the EU nearly three years after the post-Brexit trade deal came into force, according to a survey of British manufacturers.
Make UK, a trade body, said “little improvement” had been made since it conducted its first post-Brexit survey in mid-2021, with business still struggling with the effects of customs bureaucracy and logistics issues.
Make UK chief executive Stephen Phipson said British manufacturers had fought to reach other international markets but faced a “minefield of challenges” when dealing with the country’s largest trading partner. He urged the government to do more to assist trade.
“What is needed is an exports council to deliver a joined-up policy to support trade which should be incorporated into the body delivering an overarching industrial strategy here in the UK,” he added.
British trade has struggled since the introduction of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement in January 2021, which removed the UK from the EU single market and significantly increased bureaucratic barriers to trade for exporters.
However, the Make UK 2023 Trade Bulletin noted that the EU remained a vital market for the UK, with 74 per cent of companies surveyed still exporting to the bloc despite the new challenges.
And while the monetary value of exports was up, driven by inflation, volumes of exports in 2022 were still below pre-Brexit levels.
The survey found that a higher proportion, 40 per cent, of surveyed manufacturers reported that export volumes to the EU were falling, compared with about one-third who said they were rising.
Businesses also expressed concern about the impact of new border controls on imports from the bloc that the UK government is introducing from January 2024, as well as new EU requirements for its own importers, such as carbon border taxes.
Make UK warned that the new measures were likely to create “additional friction between EU suppliers and supply chain customers” with 36 per cent of UK companies saying that EU companies were less willing to work with them, making it harder to win contracts.
Adrian Hanrahan, managing director of Robinson Brothers, a medium-sized chemicals producer in West Bromwich in the West Midlands that has continued to export to the EU, said that while it had been possible to preserve existing client relationships, forging new ones had become much harder.
At a recent chemical and pharmaceutical industry trade conference in Milan, Hanrahan said several companies had said the UK was “in the box marked ‘too difficult” when it came to finding suppliers and trade partners.
“We’ve had it straight from the horse’s mouth. Two German and a Belgian customer have both said to us directly: ‘Sorry Adrian, we know you do a great job, but dealing with the UK is just too much trouble now.’”
A government spokesperson said the overwhelming majority of UK companies were continuing to export to the EU.
“We are listening to businesses and working closely with the EU to make it even easier for UK businesses to trade.”