Early each morning, the content team at the Institute of Export & International Trade sifts through the national news headlines to find the stories relevant to global trade, so you that don’t have to.
Below are four stories from the national papers and the trade press this week.
1. CBI highlights transition deadline concerns
Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the CBI, has so far stopped short of calling for an extension to the UK’s Brexit transition but her article in the Politico yesterday suggests concern is growing in the business community.
She says there is an “air of resignation” about the UK-EU talks at present and due to Covid-19, businesses are in no position to plan for a no-deal.
Her arguments echo those made by trade policy gurus in Bloomberg yesterday, who say a no-deal would severely harm the UK’s recovery from the pandemic.
The Daily Telegraph today (3 June) carries a story about Nissan warning that its Sunderland plan would not be viable if the UK does not secure tariff-free access to EU markets.
2. Trade credit on the way
The government’s £10bn trade credit scheme is set to be unveiled in the coming days, reports Sky News.
The scheme could see the government bearing the first 20% of losses on trade credit insurance contracts, with insurers responsible for the rest.
The state could be exposed to £2bn of insurance losses, says Sky’s source, but analysts think insured transactions volumes won’t add up to quite that much.
3. Capacity on the rise
Freight carriers are considering boosting their capacity with demand starting to increase again as more countries ease lockdown restrictions.
Whether rates will remain as they are is another question.
Lloyd’s Loading List say they will, but carriers are having to walk a fine line between increasing rates and increasing capacity.
Loadstar, however, reports there is an an emerging rates war on the Asia-Europe trade lane, which will presumably push up rates.
4. Faster digitisation needed
10 major ports, shipping associations and interest groups have made an “urgent call to action” for the faster “digitalisation of maritime trade and logistics”.
Lloyds Loading List reports the pandemic has “painfully demonstrated” the absence of functioning and consistent worldwide systems for electronic data exchange.
Digitisation in the freight forwarding industry also seems to be one step closer following Amazon’s backing of London start-up Beacon.
BIFA, however, have been irked by suggestions the industry is “ripe for disruption” – something we’ve written about here.