A week of political announcements and system shake-ups began with the new European commissioners picks - including the trade portfolio - being unveiled and the UK's export licencing LITE going live for traders.
There were also updates on a new trade partnership between the UK and Thailand, as well as how the fallout from Western tariffs on Chinese goods is affecting other nations in the region.
The big picture: The EU announced its new line-up of European commissioners this week, with former commissioner for the bloc’s Green Deal, Maroš Šefčovič, handed the trade brief.
In this week’s Trade Insights feature, we explored what it means for trade that the rumoured choice, Czech trade and industry minister Jozef Síkela, was instead handed the international partnership portfolio.
Šefčovič is perhaps best known in the UK as the EU’s chief representative during post-Brexit talks. He is viewed by some observers as a safe pair of hands – signalling, perhaps, a sustained emphasis on trade from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
He was charged with building the bloc’s links with Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Indo-Pacific in a letter shared by von der Leyen upon taking up the role, hinting at the potential trade priorities of the new Commission.
Good week/bad week: A boon for the UK auto industry as trade minister, Douglas Alexander, visited Thailand this week to sign a new Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP). One of the most notable benefits is that Thailand will now accepting the UK’s auto-testing standards, making it easier for car exporters to reach the market. A similar provision is being drawn up for motorbike-testing standards, while Thai exporters can now benefit from emailing documentation for food and drink goods, rather than sending physical copies. Alexander said:
“This partnership will bring our two countries closer together and help British businesses sell to Thailand, supporting jobs and growth around the country.”
Less good news for South Korea. An FT report found that despite the increasing tariffs China is facing from Western nations, South Korea isn’t reaping the benefits of supplying them.
Instead, the report notes that South Korean experts are more concern losing out on trade to middle-income countries, as China ventures into those markets to male up for its own lost revenue.
How’s stat? £494bn – that’s the value of total subsidies being provided to climate-damaging projects in the developing world, according to a report from the Guardian. The number comes from a report by charity ActionAid and includes the subsidy of the fossil fuel and intensive agriculture industries.
The week in customs: An update from the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs: downtime is planned “from 9:30pm Saturday 28 September 2024 to 3:30am Sunday 29 September 2024”.
The downtime is for planned maintenance and any declarations submitted during this period will be processed once the platform resumes its normal service.
Also, the government’s new export licensing system, Licensing for International Trade (LITE), is now open to the public. Previously, LITE was in a private testing phase as the government looks to move on from the previous SPIRE system.
Quote of the week: “The government should integrate the planned industrial strategy, with the similarly expected trade strategy, into a single effort, to reflect the complementarities between general business competitiveness and exporting success.”
Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade director general, Marco Forgione, speaking at this week’s E-commerce Expo at the London ExCeL Centre.
What else we covered this week: Elsewhere this week, there were updates on the legal challenges facing TikTok and shifts in semiconductor export rules in our US Trade Digest.
There were insights into what border changes traders can expect from 2025 in our preview of next week’s free, public webinar on ‘How importing is changing’, which takes place at 2pm 25 September. To watch, you can sign up here.
The Chartered Institute’s new export licencing workshop was hailed as a “great success”, with one learner describing the session as “beneficial for businesses”.
True facts: On this day in 1870, the ‘Kingdom of Italy’ entered Rome, beginning the process of overthrowing Papal forces to unify the country and restrict the Pope’s governing authority to Vatican City.
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