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Just as firms wrestle with a global supply chain crisis and fresh pandemic restrictions, companies in the U.K. and European Union face another looming headache: More post-Brexit red tape.
From Jan. 1, companies importing goods into Britain from the EU will be required to make full customs declarations. Food products will also have be pre-registered on an IT system, an extra bureaucratic burden which threatens to further worsen U.K.-EU trade flows already depressed by post-Brexit processes.
“It’s going to catch a lot of people out,” said Tom Maddison, director of operations at Buckle Shipping, a Felixstowe-based freight forwarder which shuttles goods between Britain and the EU. “It’s quite worrying that supposedly big companies have still got no idea really what’s going on.”
The hit to trade could be significant. Since signing the post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU last year, Britain has taken a light-touch approach to its border with the bloc, delaying checks to give companies more time to adjust to additional trade barriers caused by Brexit....
more at Bloomberg