UK businesses are calling on the government for more help exporting to Europe, after new research found that many firms believed the EU trade deal was not helping them grow or increase sales.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has surveyed 1,000 businesses, and found that a majority said it has created problems such as pushing up costs, increasing paperwork and delays, and putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage.
Just 8% of firms agreed that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) was 'enabling their business to grow or increase sales', while 54% disagreed.
For UK exporters 12% (or just one in eight) agreed that the TCA was helping them, while 71% disagreed.
The BCC received 59 comments on the merits of the TCA,
which was agreed on Christmas Eve 2020, including:
- It had allowed some companies to continue to trade without significant change
- It had encouraged firms to look at other global markets
- It had provided stability to allow firms to plan.
But this was outnumbered by 320 comments criticising the deal, such as:
- It had led to rising costs for companies and their clients
- Smaller businesses did not have the time and money to deal with the bureaucracy it had introduced
- It had put off EU customers from considering UK goods and services – due to the perceived costs and complexities.
William Bain, head of trade policy at the
BCC, said smaller firms are particularly suffering from the change to trading relationships between the UK and the EU.
"This is the latest BCC research to clearly show there are issues with the EU trade deal that need to be improved.
"Nearly all of the businesses in this research have fewer than 250 employees and these smaller firms are feeling most of the pain of the new burdens in the TCA.
"Many of these companies have neither the time, staff or money to deal with the additional paperwork and rising costs involved with EU trade, nor can they afford to set up a new base in Europe or pay for intermediaries to represent them."
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