LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) – A UK body representing small businesses warned on Tuesday that small firms were being pushed out \u200cof European Union markets due to red tape, rising costs, \u200cand complex rules, highlighting the continuing effects of Brexit more than six years after the \u200bUK left the union.<\/p>\n
The research from Britain’s Federation of Small Businesses underlined the challenges of trading with the bloc, despite the current Labour government’s push to reset economic and defence ties at a time of global \u200cuncertainty over tariffs and \u2060war.<\/p>\n
“The EU should be a natural market for our small firms as it’s so close and accessible … it’s a \u2060frustrating shame that many are currently questioning whether it’s even worth the effort at all,” FSB Policy Chair Tina McKenzie said in the statement.<\/p>\n
Here are \u200bthe FSB’s \u200bfindings:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Three in 10 traders in \u200bsmall- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) expect \u200cto reduce or stop EU trade altogether if current rules do not change<\/p>\n
\u2022 Six in 10 small firms trading with the EU have faced significant barriers<\/p>\n
\u2022 Of those importing and exporting goods, 85% report problems<\/p>\n
\u2022 The most commonly reported problems include customs documentation, physical inspections of \u200cgoods, and product marking and labelling rules<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u200bSome 75% of small firms that have \u200bengaged with EU value-added tax \u200bsystems report significant difficulties<\/p>\n
\u2022 The FSB makes a series \u200cof recommendations to improve trading conditions<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u200bThese include mutual \u200brecognition of product standards between the two sides, a single digital customs system, a new UK-EU de minimis (low-value trade) deal<\/p>\n
\u2022 They \u200balso include export grants \u200cof up to 2,000 pounds to help small firms cover the \u200bupfront costs and scrapping EU requirements for VAT middlemen<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bMuvija M; editing by David Gaffen)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) – A UK body representing small businesses warned on Tuesday that small firms were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1469,12517,4218,12518,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-28574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-european-union","9":"tag-federation-of-small-businesses","10":"tag-firms","11":"tag-fsb","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116519082583897336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}