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Policy & Compliance


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Overlooked aspects of UK’s exit from the EU


To meet free trade rules of origin, manufacturers will have to source the bulk of their materials from the UK, something many may find hard after years of close links with the EU


Whilst most people continue to focus on the impact of Britain’s exit from the EU on the way our trade, customs and wider relationship will develop with our former partners, attention should be paid to this nation’s trade with the rest of the world. In many ways the Border Operating Model


published in July is a helpful document, regardless of whether or not we have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, the


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described processes will be applicable. Focus has been on the tediously slow


progress of the trade talks between the EU and the UK. There seems to be mutual lack of understanding of the other party’s position and aims. BIFA has always said that Brexit will impact negatively on trade, resulting in more processes and interventions and slower freight movements. Some business models will change significantly, and new ones emerge.


It must be remembered that when this country


leaves the Customs Union and Single Market on 31 December this year that all those trade deals that the UK benefits from will cease. Away from the spotlight of the London-Brussels trade negotiations, government officials are re- negotiating these agreements. In order to benefit from the preference


arrangements embedded in an FTA, goods will have to meet the relevant rules of origin included in any such agreement. Whilst these will not directly impact on the freight forwarder, they will do so on their clients.


Rules of origin compliance In essence, compliance with rules of origin are achieved through two basic ways: • By demonstrating that a product “wholly originates” in a particular market: or


• By showing that a product’s components have been sufficiently transformed in that market to make the product that they constitute a local or “originating” product. The first scenario is relatively straightforward,


September 2020


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