The independent study, conducted by Oxera Consulting, reviewed the likely impact of an \u2018out\u2019 vote on the UK transport sector, namely ports, aviation and rail.<\/p>\n
According to the review, \u2018changes to the costs of trade with the EU are likely to affect the volumes and patterns of freight activity at ports, while the need for new customs checks on imports and exports is likely to cause considerable congestion at UK and mainland European ports\u2019.<\/p>\n
Given that over 90% of UK trade in terms of volume is handled by ports this predicted impact could have far-reaching consequences for the price of goods. Moreover the EU is the UK\u2019s largest trading partner.<\/p>\n
Sean Thomas, senior consultant at Oxera and one of the authors of the report, explained the likely impact that Brexit would have. He believes two main factors would affect trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder a Brexit scenario, you wouldn\u2019t be subject to the same tariffs and import duties as under the EU,\u201d he told Port Strategy<\/em>. Furthermore \u201cthe UK currently has access to a lot of its trading partners [through the EU]. Something like half of the UK trade is done with the EU on relatively lenient customs arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you start having to have checks on all consignments of goods it will impose costs,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n Until a new agreement is negotiated, it is likely that trade would be under a World Trade Organisation (WTO) model.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were trading under WTO rules, you\u2019d expect a tariff rate of about 5% and a customs clearance cost of about 8%,\u201d said Mr Thomas.<\/p>\n The World Bank estimates that the customs clearance process adds around a day to the import process for a single freight container. For multi-stop journeys through Europe, separate checks would be needed at each country.<\/p>\n Instead of the current seamless journey, a lorry would have to wait while each separate pallet is checked, requiring extensive investment in parking facilities at UK ports and leading to extensive queues at terminals.<\/p>\n Mr Thomas believes the likely impact will be an increased cost of goods.<\/p>\n \u201cThese costs could end up being borne by the consumer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBroadly speaking you would expect that if you have higher tariffs and import duties and a more onerous customs clearance, then imported goods become more expensive and exported goods less competitive,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Moreover, the consequences could extend beyond higher prices for the consumer with the report highlighting that the distribution of impact would not be constant across the UK.<\/p>\n \u201cSome ports depend more on EU trade than others. There would be more upheaval in some ports than others,\u201d said Mr Thomas.<\/p>\n In terms of regulation, the writers of the report envisage little overall change if the UK leaves the EU.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EU imposes a number of directives and regulations around environmental protection and that\u2019s been cited by some parts of the ports industry as a potential barrier for expansion at ports,\u201d said Mr Thomas.<\/p>\n \u201cThat said, leaving the EU doesn\u2019t mean that you end up with a complete free-for-all in the UK. It\u2019s almost unimaginable that you would go from a position where you had regulation to protect the environment imposed at EU level to nothing under the Brexit scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n Overall the picture painted by the report is a fairly bleak one for ports with a Brexit decision almost certainly driving up the cost of imports and reducing trade.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an increase in trade activity when a country joins the EU,\u201d said Mr Thomas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is to what extent could that trade be replaced by alternative trading partners. The reality is that no one knows.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big caveat here is what sort of alternative trade agreement is the UK able to negotiate,\u201c he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UK\u2019s exit from the European Union could cause \u2018considerable congestion\u2019 at ports across Europe and lead to a reduced volume of trade, according to a report by economic analysts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9891","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\/9891","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=9891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9893,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions\/9893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9891"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}