Scoop: British bike makers face a wave of cheap Chinese imports after Brexit, as EU anti-dumping rules are dropped by the U.K. 1/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Brompton Bicycles is among the companies in the firing line, as DIT has decided not to maintain the EU's tariffs of up to 48.5% on bikes coming in from China. The levy was introduced in response to large state support by China to its manufacturers 2/ eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/… 
Post-Brexit, the UK has control of its trade defence policy. It says it will only maintain EU anti-dumping rules if domestic producers make up more than 1% of the local market for a good. They say British bikes failed on this metric 3/ gov.uk/guidance/trade…
With coronavirus and Brexit, plus a boom in cycling in the UK, Brompton MD Will Butler-Adams says the government should be supporting British manufacturing in this area -- not exposing it to unfair Chinese competition 4/
The govt says it's doing this to benefit consumers with cheaper bikes. But the local producers (perhaps unsurprisingly) warn of inferior quality, threats to safety from poorer builds 5/
Slight plot twist - Frog Bikes, one of the U.K.'s biggest makers, said it showed evidence to DIT that domestic bike production *does* exceed 1% of the local market, and that it's at least 3%. But they didn't get a formal response from government, and don't know how to appeal 6/
Expect more of this post-Brexit. Trade has the ability to cause dislocation and upheaval for industries, and the government will have to toe a fine line between doing what's best for consumers and supporting local jobs.. ends/ bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
