Summary
The UK’s new Covid-19 linked ‘red list’ travel restrictions threatens to undermine a nascent recovery in passenger-based air freight services from Eastern Africa to the UK. While the public health measures are understandable, they need to be seen in the context of new Brexit trade complications for air freighted fresh produce. This threatens to put Eastern African fresh produce exporters at a competitive disadvantage vis a vis competitors in major product areas such as fresh beans and cut flowers. It gives an added urgency to the promotion of unilateral UK initiatives to resolve the new rules of origin complications on ACP exports shipped to the UK market via the EU. Read more “East African Air Freighted Horticulture and Floriculture Exports to UK facing Devastation Given UK ‘Red List’ Travel Restrictions”
Category: Horticulture
UK Parliamentary Report Reviews Operational Shortcomings of EU/UK TCA and Highlights Rules of Origin Problems Faced by ACP Re-Exports
Summary
While the House of Lords European Union Committee highlights the substantive unresolved issues under the EU/UK TCA, the focus is on the impact on UK businesses. While the impact on developing countries is referred to, this analysis is underdeveloped. A significant number of ACP supply chains are being affected. The new rules of origin complication is a particular area of concern, with ACP exporters being caught up in this new trade challenge. The affected ACP exports range from fresh horticulture, floriculture, and fisheries products, through the onward trade in ACP semi-processed products to ACP sugar exports. A solution to the rules of origin complication at the EU/UK level is unlikely. There is however scope for a solution for ACP exports shipped to the UK via the EU through the kind of UK pragmatic unilateral action which the Committee has called for and which the UK government is nominally open to. Coordinated action by ACP governments and business bodies to secure such unilateral pragmatic UK solutions in trade with the UK would appear urgent, given the scale of total ACP exports potentially facing export market losses. Read more “UK Parliamentary Report Reviews Operational Shortcomings of EU/UK TCA and Highlights Rules of Origin Problems Faced by ACP Re-Exports”
COLEACP Updated Brexit Impact Assessment Posted
Summary
The comprehensive nature of COLEACP’s Brexit assessment makes it a useful starting point for all ACP agri-food exporters in their efforts to get to grips with the new trade challenges thrown up by the culmination of the Brexit process. Its analysis of the short-term transitional and long-term structural challenges faced, also raises policy issues which now need to be addressed if disruptions to ACP supply chains which cross the new EU/UK customs and regulatory border are to be minimised. This sets an agenda for concerted ACP action, drawing in stakeholders from the multiplicity of sectors adversely affected by the new trade realities faced. While in the horticulture sector these issues primarily affect ACP exporters using triangular supply chains, in other sectors ACP exporters directly serving EU and UK markets could also be affected. This is particularly the case where imports are used in manufactured food and drink products and where the use of domestically produced alternatives (of either EU or UK origin) could avert any rules of origin complications (e.g., in the use of imported sugar in food and drink products destined for export). Read more “COLEACP Updated Brexit Impact Assessment Posted”
Will ACP Producers Currently Exporting to Irish Markets Via the UK or Using the UK ‘Land Bridge’ Take Advantage of Expanded Mainland EU to Republic of Ireland Ferry Services
Summary
There has been a 3-fold expansion of direct ferry services from the Republic of Ireland to France in 2021, as well as an expansion of direct services to Dutch and Belgian ports. Using these routes to serve Irish markets could enable ACP exporters traditionally using the UK ‘land bridge’ or serving Irish markets via the UK to sidestep export pre-notification requirements further phytosanitary certification requirements, further phytosanitary inspections, and major rules of origin complications, which result in a loss of duty-free access for onward traded goods, while allowing a continuation of low-cost ‘Groupage’ cargo haulage practices. The imbalance in Irish truck-based exports compared to imports could open up opportunities for securing low-cost freight services, which balance the more expensive ferry costs along these routes. However, this will require a process of ‘match making’ between ACP exporters and Irish hauliers, where potentially Irish government support could play a role. Read more “Will ACP Producers Currently Exporting to Irish Markets Via the UK or Using the UK ‘Land Bridge’ Take Advantage of Expanded Mainland EU to Republic of Ireland Ferry Services”
Brexit Bureaucracy Places Brake on Commercial Flexibility for ACP Horticultural Exports
Summary
Pre-export notification requirements, the need to re-issue phytosanitary certificates, problems in delivering ‘groupage’ cargoes, port clearance delays and rising road haulage charges are all undermining the commercial flexibility required for ACP exporters to exploit emerging market opportunities, where this involves the movement of goods across EU/UK borders. This is depressing export earnings, with this being a particular problem for smaller scale ACP exporters. In addition, new rules of origin complication which lead to standard MFN import tariffs being applied if goods delivered along triangular supply chains are not shipped under customs supervision, is requiring a fundamental rethink of the routes to market being used. A policy response, involving modification of the ‘Direct Transport’ provisions of the rules of origin applied under ACP-UK trade agreements and ACP-EU trade agreements is urgently needed, if smaller scale exporters shipping along triangular supply chains are not to be driven of UK and Irish markets. Read more “Brexit Bureaucracy Places Brake on Commercial Flexibility for ACP Horticultural Exports”
UK Deferment of Implementation of Phase 2 and Phase 3 UK/EU Border Controls Leave Problems Faced By ACP Triangular Supply Chain Exporters Unaddressed
Summary
On 11 March 2021, the UK government announced the deferment until 2022 of its planned phase 2 and phase 3 controls on goods crossing an EU/UK border. This has reduced concerns over potential disruptions of UK imports of fresh produce in the coming months and provides a 9-month breathing space for the UK authorities to set in place border control infrastructure and services which are ‘fit for purpose’. This deferment benefits EU producers, but largely leaves ACP exporters serving UK markets along triangular supply chains unaffected. ACP exporters will still face the dilemma of choosing between entering the EU customs union so as to benefit from the light UK import controls applied to EU products and losing ‘originating status and facing MFN tariffs, which is the consequence of leaving customs supervised transit arrangements. Clearly there is an urgent need to address specific ACP triangular supply chain issues if the functioning of many of these ACP triangular supply chains are not to be fundamentally undermined. Read more “UK Deferment of Implementation of Phase 2 and Phase 3 UK/EU Border Controls Leave Problems Faced By ACP Triangular Supply Chain Exporters Unaddressed”
Ghana’s Duty-Free Access to UK Market Restored
Summary
Following the signing of the Ghana-UK trade agreement in London on 2 March 2021 and the tabling of a statutory instrument on 4 March, duty free access will be restored for Ghanaian exports to the UK on 5 March 2021. This will avert the further imposition of UK import tariffs, which in the past 2 months have cost Fairtrade banana exporters over £177,000. It is unclear what long-term implications the recent hiatus in Ghana’s duty-free access will carry for the sourcing decisions of UK importers, a number of which in the past two months have looked elsewhere for supplies. Read more “Ghana’s Duty-Free Access to UK Market Restored”
Future Caribbean Trade Relations with the UK: Summary of Areas of Concern
Summary
The new EU/UK rules of origin requirements for the cross-border movement of goods could prove disruptive of certain Caribbean rum, horticulture, sugar and potentially rice supply chains. At the business level this will require a rethinking of routes to markets. At the policy level it will require a sustained engagement to secure a right of automatic cumulation for all Caribbean products enjoying duty-free/quota-free access to both the EU and UK markets, when traded across an EU/UK border. Only such a policy innovation would remove the rules of origin complications which threatened to make commercially non-viable the current Caribbean exports which are routed via the EU to the UK market or via the UK to EU markets. Read more “Future Caribbean Trade Relations with the UK: Summary of Areas of Concern”
Two weeks after the Conclusion of Ghana UK Trade Negotiations UK Import Tariffs on Ghanaian Products Remain in Place
Summary
Two weeks after the conclusion of UK-Ghana trade agreement negotiations, Ghanaian exporters continue to face UK import tariffs. It took the UK government only two days to ensure duty-free access for Cameroonian exports following the conclusion of the negotiations at the end of December 2020. The restoration of Ghanaian duty-free access on a transitional basis, pending formal signing, would appear appropriate, particularly since this is allowed for in the formal provisions of the concluded agreement. It remains a mystery as to why the UK government has not taken all necessary steps to ensure Ghana’s duty-free access was immediately restored following the conclusion of the negotiation process. Read more “Two weeks after the Conclusion of Ghana UK Trade Negotiations UK Import Tariffs on Ghanaian Products Remain in Place”
East African Fresh Product Export Supply Chains Disrupted by Brexit Related Changes in Border Clearance Requirement
Summary
The impact of new EU/UK border clearance requirements on the costs faced by East African fresh produce exporters serving the UK market via the EU is becoming apparent. In some cases, this is severely impacting on export volumes destined for the UK market shipped along triangular supply chains. The dilemma is faced of whether to ship under customs supervision and face inspection delays at the UK border, or clear customs and SPS inspections in the EU and risk losing ‘originating’ status and hence facing MFN tariffs when entering the UK. This dilemma is faced by a multiplicity of East African exporters who use triangular supply chains. LDC based exporters are particularly disadvantaged, given the absence of clear structure for dialogue with the UK on resolving customs and trade facilitation issues. Read more “East African Fresh Product Export Supply Chains Disrupted by Brexit Related Changes in Border Clearance Requirement”