Charlieaja

Research for Flemish firms has found that 74% of UK companies said they had been forced to consider other markets, due to post-Brexit administration struggles.

But GatewayBritain has promised to make trade between Flanders and Britain as frictionless as possible.

GatewayBritain, described as an innovative digital application that will bring visibility and transparency for trading with Flanders into one place, derives from a partnership between Port of Antwerp-Bruges, Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO), Flanders Investment and Trade and Deloitte.

The initiative was announced in June and will allow traders to fill out just one dataset online, which is then automatically shared with all the relevant supply chain and logistics partners.

Earlier this month, the pilot product of the application was launched. Functionalities include shipment and transport management, data authorisation management, document management, communication management and notification management.

Dirk Verlee, trade and investment counsellor at Flanders Investment and Trade, said: Flanders is a key route in and out of the EU for British traders. This means that if GatewayBritain solves the challenges of Brexit in the Belgian region, supply issues that have affected the UK should also be solved.

Flanders is a popular route into the EU for UK companies, due to its proximity to both the UK and Europes major business centres. A market of 400 million consumers, or 60% of Europes purchasing power, is within six hours of the region.

Trade figures for 2022 revealed that the total value of exports from the UK to Flanders was 33.77bn ($37bn), and imports into the UK from Flanders totalled 27.95bn ($30.7bn). The UK is Flanders fourth-highest export market.

However, research conducted in May by Censuswide of more than 1,000 UK traders found that some 74% of UK companies said they had been forced to consider alternative markets, due to difficulties in trading with the EU post-Brexit. And 42% had seen trade with the EU decrease, while 48% of the respondents said they would trade more if the process was simplified.

Minister and president of the government of Flanders Jan Jambon said: Britain is an important trading partner for Flanders. We know from our research that British companies have been looking at alternative markets due to the bureaucracy involved post-Brexit. GatewayBritain signals the end of that bureaucracy.

After the pilot shipments, stakeholders will be invited to share their feedback.

Link:

Bid to cut through post-Brexit red tape tying up UK trade with Flanders - theloadstar.com