Richard Ballantyne said that \u201cit is now almost inevitable that the promise of continued \u2018frictionless trade\u2019 will not be met\u201d. Responding to Brexit developments on 3 February, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2019s speech in Greenwich, the BPA has called on the government to clarify the mixed messages on trade and set out a positive and detailed vision for the UK\u2019s trade and industrial policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clock is ticking and the freight sector needs to understand exactly what border requirements there will be from January 2021,\u201d said Mr Ballantyne.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an excellent relationship with the various parts of Government that are planning for Brexit but now we need a clear and detailed statement on their positive vision for UK trade and industrial strategy \u2013 with Europe and the world \u2013 and how that will affect industries that rely on free-flowing trade through UK ports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government stance<\/strong><\/p>\n On the subject of a future trading relationship with the EU, Mr Johnson said that the UK had made its choice, commenting “we want a comprehensive free trade agreement, similar to Canada\u2019s\u201d.<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s trading relationship with the EU is a free-trade agreement and includes some measure of alignment, although the BPA noted that Mr Johnson seemed to suggest that the UK is not seeking \u201calignment of any kind\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPorts and traders need to know what the Government is aiming for when it comes to equivalence, regulatory alignment and agreeing a level playing field \u2013 which are not the same thing,\u201d commented Mr Ballantyne.<\/p>\n The BPA believe that while most ports will not see major congestion even in the worst scenarios, disruption at certain ports may mean increased costs for traders, manufacturers and ultimately potentially consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The British Ports Association\u2019s (BPA) chief executive has stressed that \u201cthe freight sector needs to understand exactly what border requirements there will be from January 2021 as Brexit proceeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}