The Department for International Trade has launched a new grant scheme designed to support UK firms to expand internationally.
Called the Internationalisation Fund, grants of between £1,000 and £9,000 will be made available to eligible firms covering a wide range of international business activities, from export consultancy to digital marketing.
Businesses will need to cover between 40-50% of the costs themselves with the grant covering the rest and can be applied to activities including:
- Market research
- IP advice
- Translation services
- International social media/SEO
- Trade fairs (where no TAP funding is available)
- Independent market visits
- Consultancy and other international commercial services
The eligibility criteria are:
- The company must be based in England
- The company must be a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) with up to 250 employees
- No more than 25% of the business is owned by an enterprise that is not an SME
- Annual turnover does not exceed €50 million or annual balance sheet does not exceed €43 million
Funding to support expert consultancy from Go Exporting
The new grant scheme can be applied to services offered by Go Exporting, including our export consultancy services and international digital marketing campaigns.
- Learn more about our export consultancy services
- Learn more about our international digital marketing services
The UK has failed to reach a post-Brexit agreement with Norway over the rights for UK vessels to access Norway’s sub-Arctic waters.
With the UK leaving the European Common Fisheries Policy at the start of the year and now dealing directly with Norway, an agreement couldn’t be reached after the UK government’s ‘fair offer’ was rejected.
Norway’s waters, known for cod catches worth some £32m in 2018, had been fair game for UK fleets for decades.
However, as Norway is itself not an EU member state, the trade agreement with the EU didn’t cover a continuation of these rights. And, despite last year both agreeing to a system of cooperation post-Brexit, a deal couldn’t be reached despite weeks of talks.
Jane Sandell, chief executive of UK Fisheries, said that the talks had failed to even maintain the current rights that have been in place for decades.
She said: “In consequence, there will be no British-caught Arctic cod sold through chippies for our national dish.
“It will all be imported from the Norwegians, who will continue to sell their fish products to the UK tariff-free, while we are excluded from these waters. Quite simply, this is a disgrace and a national embarrassment.”
Read more: Food and drink exports crippled by Brexit and lockdowns
A spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that agreements would only be reached if they were in the interest of the UK fishing industry.
They said that: “We put forward a fair offer on access to UK waters and the exchange of fishing quotas, but we have concluded that our positions remain too far apart to reach an agreement this year,” they added.
“Norway is a key partner and we will continue to work with them over the course of the year.”
The European Parliament will this week vote on the post-Brexit trade agreement between the UK and EU and are expected to back the trade and cooperation agreement.
This final step in the trade deal’s approval is likely to be confirmed this Tuesday (27th April), close to its own end of April deadline to conclude the new relationship with the UK. Failure to vote through the deal could have left Britain and the European Union trading with tariffs and quotas.
This final step had been under some threat over the last few months as relations between the British government and EU lawmakers frayed over Covid vaccine supplies and the unilateral suspension of elements of the Northern Ireland protocol.
However, the EU’s foreign affairs and trade committees voted overwhelmingly in favour of the agreement last week, allowing for its expected ratification tomorrow.
Ratification should bring to a relative conclusion almost five years of political and business turmoil, starting with the referendum result in June 2016.
Key steps along the way, as provided by the Institute of Export & Internation Trade, shows the extent of the fallout from that day to this:
23 June 2016 – UK votes to leave the EU
29 March 2017 – Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50 to begin two year countdown to leaving
2019
14 March – UK government seeks permission from the EU to extend Article 50 and agree a later Brexit date
20 March –PM Theresa May writes to European Council President Donald Tusk, asking to extend Article 50 until 30 June 2019
2 April – PM announced she will seek a further extension to the Article 50 process
10 April – UK and EU27 agree to extend Article 50 until 31 October 2019
24 May – Theresa May resigns as PM
24 July – Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister after winning Conservative leadership contest
19 October – Johnson’s new Brexit deal is beaten in the Commons
28 October – EU Ambassadors agreed a further Brexit extension to 31 January 2020
12 December – Johnson wins UK General Election and says he will ‘get Brexit done’ by 31 January 2020
2020
23 January – the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 receives Royal Assent
11pm, 31 January – the UK formally leaves the EU and enters a transition period
30 December – EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is signed, with UK parliament ratifying it that day
11pm, 31 December – Transition period ends and the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union
2021
3 March – UK unilaterally extends grace period for supermarket agri-food from Great Britain to Northern Ireland from April 1 to October 1
EU says UK grace period extension breaches international law
9 March – UK exporters urge Lord Frost to cool trade tensions with Brussels
15 March – European Commission sends UK a formal notice of legal action for breach of its obligations under the NI Protocol
14 April – EU parliament again refuses to set date for ratifying Brexit trade deal amid concerns over UK conduct
27 April – European Parliament due to ratify TCA deal
Trade between the UK and the EU recovered in February after a big drop at the start of the year.
Following the end of the transition period and the start of ‘Brexit for real’ for companies on both sides of the Channel, exporting activity had slumped 42%.
But data from the ONS found that exports jumped almost 47% in February, but are still below last year’s activity.
February’s rebound was predominantly fueled by export increases of machinery, transport equipment and chemicals – particularly cards and pharma products. Interestingly, growth in exports from the UK to the EU was stronger than EU into the UK.
An ONS spokesperson said of the data that: “Exports to the EU recovered significantly from their January fall, though still remain below 2020 levels. However, imports from the EU are yet to significantly rebound, with a number of issues hampering trade.”
Read more: Food and drink exports crippled by Brexit and lockdowns
The rebound against January’s slump is still difficult to truly analyse to see how export markets are responding to Brexit. Many companies avoided sending goods across the border at the start of the year to avoid expected Brexit disruption, especially across machinery, parts and pharmaceutical products that were stockpiled towards the end of 2020.
The ongoing pandemic also continues to skew and disrupt demand.
UK steel exports into the EU have dropped significantly since Brexit, with volume in Q1 2021 down a third on previous years.
Trade body UK Steel shared the figures with the Mirror, showing how shipments from the UK into the EU fell from an average of 630,000 tonnes to just 420,000 tonnes in the first three months of the year.
The data suggests a Brexit-related slump in demand with British steel exporters using less than 60% of their quotas in the first quarter.
Director-general of UK Steel, Gareth Stace, said that: “This is a challenging time for the UK steel sector as it does its utmost to adapt to challenging new trading conditions and recover from the impacts of Covid-19.
“This first quarter of export data demonstrates quite how challenging market conditions are for the sector at this time and the new barriers now in place between us and our largest export market.
“We are confident that some of these export difficulties will lessen as time goes on, but unfortunately many will be a permanent feature of our new trading relationship with the EU.”
Read more: How to export post-Brexit (webinar)
The British steel industry has been fighting for survival for years, but a changed relationship with the EU and the pandemic is likely making the situation more challenging. Liberty Steel is the latest to face challenges, with 3,000 jobs and 11 UK plants at risk following the well-publicised collapse of Greensill Capital.
Last month, Go Exporting CEO Mike Wilson joined Pervinder Singh, the editor and founder of the UK India Trade Portal to discuss navigating the Indian market and opportunities for bilateral trade.
In the interview, the two discuss why British companies should consider trading within the Indian market and the most effective approaches to market entry.
Watch in full below, and make sure you subscribe for more insightful content from the UK India Trade Portal here.
This week we joined Enterprise Nation for a Lunch and Learn session all about exporting following the end of the transition period at the start of the year.
In this webinar recording, learn the implications of Brexit with a guide and checklist on how to prepare for export in a post-Brexit world.
Watch the webinar recording in full on the Enterprise Nation website here.
UK food and drink exports have suffered a huge year-on-year trade reduction according to new data from HMRC.
Data compiled by the Food and Drink Federation shows showed a £42m fall in cheese exports – from £45m to just £7m – whilst whisky exports fell from £105m to just £40m. Chocolate exports also suffered, dropping almost 70% to £13m.
Whilst the biggest falls in export value, these were by no means the worst affected products. Salmon and beef dropped 98% and 92% respectively.
Causes of the drop in export demand include a combination of Brexit and weaker demand from a continent that still largely remains in lockdown with restaurants shut.
Read more: Trade between UK and EU nations falls
An ONS spokesperson added some context to the data, noting that: “A unique combination of factors, including stockpiling last year, Covid lockdowns across Europe and businesses adjusting to our new trading relationship, made it inevitable that exports to the EU would be lower this January than last.”
If your business has been impacted, we can help
Go Exporting has already helped a number of companies both prepare for Brexit, and now workaround new restrictions, regulations and challenges.
Our Brexit FastTrack service offers a detailed review of businesses post-Brexit to help resolve the issues they’re encountering – with a quick turnaround and at a fixed price.
Some firms may also be able to reclaim the cost of this service via the SME Brexit Support Fund.
A study released this month has found that London has maintained its status as Europe’s main financial hub – but global players are catching up.
That’s according to Z/Yen’s Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) which reported that, although London had maintained second place globally, it has lost 23 index points since September 2020 with Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore closing in.
The news is significant as there had been real concern over the capital’s future status in both EU and global finance in the wake of Brexit, particularly with the lack of an equivalence deal maintaining its access to continental markets.
Yet despite holding on to EU dominance, the Bank of England has suggested over 7,000 jobs have been lost to rival centres in the EU following the end of the transition period. But a jobs exodus from London has yet to be realised within finance, and a report from Business Money even shows a 10-fold rise in businesses looking to open satellite offices in the UK.
There have been further reports this month that Chancellor Rishi Sunak is planning to set light to a range of EU rules in a bid to secure London’s position as a global financial centre.
Read more: Quarter of all full-time UK jobs supported by export activity
Chairman at PwC UK, Keven Ellis, commented that: “Not only has the UK grown in appeal to some of our newer trade targets, but it remains an important market among our European neighbours, with 15% of Germany’s CEOs saying the UK is a top 3 growth target, compared with 13% in 2019.
“These are encouraging signs but there’s more to do to enhance the UK’s position and investment attractiveness in what remains a very uncertain world.”
A report published this month has highlighted just how vital exporting is in supporting quality jobs.
The assessment report on jobs, published from the Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde, found that 23% of all UK full-time jobs in 2016 were supported by exports.
Of those FTE jobs supported by exporting activity, 58% were directly related whilst 42% were involved in supply chains of exporting industries.
The report also found that manufacturing made up the bulk of export-related jobs. Trade with the US accounted for the largest number of supported jobs at 1.3 million, whilst EU export activity occupied 2.8 million FTE workers.
The release of this report coincided with new findings from the government’s Board of Trade report, finding that during 2016, exports supported 6.5 million jobs in the UK – paying on average 7% more than the national median wage.
Secretary of State for International Trade, Liz Truss, said in her foreword for the report that: “For the first time in almost 50 years, the UK is in control of its own trade policy and we have renewed this centuries-old institution (Board of Trade) to bring together leaders in business, academia and government.
“As a nation, we have not been in a position to steer our own trade debate for generations. Now we can and I believe the Board will play a crucial role in this vital discussion.”
Read more: New Gov campaign to support UK producers export food and drink internationally
“We have a great story to tell as a trading nation, and now as we set out into our future as an independent country with the whole world as its marketplace, we will champion values-driven free trade as a force for good in the world and a driver of prosperity for every part of the United Kingdom.”
