Turns out the supplementary customs declarations due this month (from this month onwards) are also a problem for the customs industry. Risk of a backlog.
/1
Traders unprepared and often unaware of the obligations.
Brokers lack capacity, often don't communicate with traders due to lack of time. Or they wrongly assume that traders know what's required.
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You need special authorisation to be able to submit these supplementary declarations and not every broker has one. The application process is complex.
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Another interesting point is importing goods into the UK where the importer is an EU company (happens more than you think).
In these cases, the broker has to be jointly liable for any debt.
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So naturally, they're not really up for it.
I've been saying that the definition of importer/exporter was going to cause problems for years.
It's a mess on so many levels.
5/5
And here is @vivamjm 🧵 on the same article which I missed.
Indeed ROI would be "paying the price" for ensuring there is no border between north and south.
I'm not sure what the tangible impact would be on trade between ROI/EU but any costs and delays would now be for the EU MS to absorb. Significant transfer of responsibility here.
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And difficult to imagine this being introduced without any further consequences for the UK as it would normalise UK's unwillingness to implement the Protocol. A document the UK:
✅negotiated,
✅signed and
✅promoted domestically as a massive success.
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So I have a feeling many companies are in for a rude awakening this month - the first round of supplementary customs declarations for companies importing from the EU
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Thanks to the UK Gov's easements there was an option to defer customs declarations for the first 6 months and submit the bare minimum of data at the time of import (usually done by the carrier, logistics provider)
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This was to be followed by a full, supplementary declaration up to 175 days later.
While I have often said that I don't believe the pandemic will significantly shift supply chains (which are formed as a response to costs, availability, taxes and a number of other factors) I was thinking it's likely to impact the approach to inventory management.
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The authors are equally sceptical about "supply chain resilience" but go even further when it comes to assessing the likelihood of impact on the type of inventory management - expanding storage space and increasing your inventory costs money.
While this focuses on the WTO, obviously parallels can be drawn between the WTO transparency debate, the wider transparency in trade debate and the recent discussions around the UK's trade strategy (FTA talks).
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I think when it comes to transparency in trade a question that's more important than "should we?" is "how to?".