This morning (7th October 2109) I went to a #KentCountyCouncil presentation at Sessions House in Maidstone and was impressed by the #CityofDover& #HMRC‘s presentations which explained how data will now at the heart of all future importing & exporting procedures & processes after Brexit on 31st October, just in time for the build up towards Christmas.
Small and large UK Companies will now need to register each trading consignment online and the actual consignments will be helped along at one of 117 new Pop Up centres being established around the UK (places such as Motorways & transport intersections).
I was particularly heartened to see the involvement of KCC’s Resilience Forum (http://www.kentprepared.org.uk/page1.aspx?p=15&t=3) who have been involved in two or three recent emergencies in Kent I have been tangentially involved in. It also seems like there is a consolidation of Post Brexit importing & exporting as UK companies are letting Freight Forwarders like #keuneandNagel take the lead and do all the new paperwork, organisational work and facilitate importing & exporting. A very logical solution really.
The Government said that their intention of redesigning the Importing & Exporting of good & services will have the following Priority:
1. Flow
2. Security
3. Compliancewhich seems a very pragmatic priority to me.
Clearly if the UK adopts the WTO Ts & Cs (by default with a No-Deal Brexit) there will be many, many changes to the UK tariff regime from the current 87% of imports which are Tariff-Free now.
Further, the UK Government has recquistioned Manston Airport as a huge parking lot for any Brexit contingencies, which is probably the only large unused site remotely close to the Port of Dover.