The European Union is the UK’s largest trade partner. Leaving the EU (BREXIT) will  lower trade between the UK and the EU in the near future because of higher barriers to trade. In the pessimistic scenario – wich seems to be a realistic situation now – the UK will not be successful in negotiating a new trade agreement with the EU and, therefore, trade between the UK and the EU following Brexit is governed by WTO-rules.

In this context, UK companies – but as well many EU economies – will be more vulnerable. German trade with the UK is already decreasing significantly.

There are two main consequences wich will bring along new challenges for our internationalization consultancy:

• investments leaving the UK will go primarily to other EU countries
• UK companies will need a special advice in order to attain compensation for higher export costs and trade barriers

In this permanent varying BREXIT situation consultations for internationalization projects between EU and UK companies are of particular importance. They have to relate to factual barriers in the market as well as to irrational fears of all involved trade partners.

We know, that anticipated trade and export restrictions are creating new support needs. BUSINESS ROUTES observes and analyzes the UK market with this particular BREXIT focus. By using our virtual Representative Office Berlin, UK companies will rapidly face the BREXIT scenario in one way: no time-consuming early stage operation of an own branch office, which means low fix costs for their market entry.

Image © Bernd Röcken