Nearly a quarter of small businesses in the United Kingdom have decided to stop exporting to the European Union due to Brexit costs and new paperwork, according to a March 29 survey by the Federation of Small Businesses. And 4% of small exporters already have decided to permanently stop selling to the EU following the new trade rules that took effect on Jan. 1, when Britain left the EU, while 11% of small exporters are at least considering completely halting their exports to the bloc. Importers are a slightly different story, with only 17% temporarily suspending purchases from the EU. The Brexit transition has been a logistics fiasco, with 70% of importers and exporters reporting having suffered shipment delays when moving goods around the EU in the first quarter, and 32% having lost goods in transit. To ease these costs, one in 10 exporters is considering establishing a presence in an EU country to ease the process, and more than half of small exporters and importers have sought professional advice to navigate customs, rules of origin and value-added tax obligations.

A meningitis vaccine shipment is being held up by Italy's customs agency over suspicions that drugmakers are attempting to circumvent COVID-19 vaccine export controls in the European Union, two people familiar with the matter said, Bloomberg reported. The shipment comes from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and is worth about $10 million. It has been sitting at Rome's airport for about a week awaiting testing to determine the true contents of the vaccines. The delayed shipment may turn out to be collateral damage from the EU's ramped up export control regime, which the bloc extended on March 24 due to concerns that vaccine commitments between developers and the government would not be met (see 2103240016).

China imposed sanctions on nine British nationals and four businesses that “maliciously spread lies and disinformation” about the serious human rights violations by China against the Uyghur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a March 26 news release. The sanctions, which take the form of an asset freeze and travel ban, come as a response to the United Kingdom's own sanctions against Chinese individuals or entities on March 23 that the kingdom coordinated with the European Union and the U.S. (see 2103220034). Five members of Parliament were included in the Chinese sanctions: Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat, Neil O'Brien, Nusrat Ghani and Tim Loughton. The other four individuals are House of Lords members David Alton and Helena Kennedy, lawyer Geoffrey Nice and Joanne Nicola Smith Finley of New Castle University. The four entities are the China Research Group, Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Uyghur Tribunal and Essex Court Chambers.

Digital services taxes and Boeing-Airbus disputes need to be cleared away, but in just a few months, another potential trade friction between the U.S. and the European Union may arise, according to a recent think tank study on the trans-Atlantic economic relationship. The Wilson Center said the European Commission intends to release a carbon border adjustment mechanism proposal this summer, so the U.S. and EU consultations have no time to waste. “Because the EU and the United States are each other’s largest commercial partners, driven by significant mutual investments forming dense interlinkages across both economies, it will be important for the parties to work together to devise WTO-compatible CBAMs,” the study said.

In a joint communication to the European Council on the state of European Union-Turkey relations, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell floated the possibility of expanding the sanctions framework on Turkey, additional sanctions listings and restrictions of the European Investment Bank, among other options to curb any Turkish breaches of international law. Other potential countermeasures against Turkey could involve targeting important sectors of the Turkish economy, including “a prohibition to supply of tourism services” and “import/export bans on certain goods and technologies” key to the energy sector. In the same communication, Borrell discussed expanding and modernizing the current EU-Turkey Customs Union as already proposed by the European Commission as a way to strengthen economic ties between the two sides.

British online fashion retailer Boohoo published a full list of its United Kingdom clothing manufacturers and suppliers, revealing it has cut ties with hundreds of companies following a review of its supply chain, according to a report in The Guardian. Reports of serious labor violations in its U.K. supply chain have dogged the company, leading to public scrutiny and even the initiation of a CBP investigation (see 2103030055). Boohoo had U.K. lawyer Alison Levitt conduct the review of the supply chain in 2020, ultimately leading to over 400 of the retailer's suppliers being cut from its production lines, the report said. Levitt's review found “endemic” problems at factories in Leicester, including minimum wage violations and life-threatening fire risks.

The United Kingdom's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation added the Myanmar Economic Holdings Public Company Ltd. to its sanctions list, subjecting it to an asset freeze, it said in a March 25 Financial Sanctions Notice. The major Myanmar conglomerate, owned by the Myanmar military, contributed to a series of fundraising events, which provided financial support to military personnel engaged in genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the Southeast Asian nation.

The United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom signed a long-term investment agreement in U.K. life sciences, a March 24 news release said. The agreement was made under the UAE-U.K. Sovereign Investment Partnership and involves monetary contributions from the Department of International Trade's Office for Investment and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Co. Mubadala pledged 800 million pounds for U.K. life sciences over the next five years, to be paired with 200 million pounds from the U.K. Life Sciences Investment Programme.

The European Union is expanding its control over exports of COVID-19 vaccines made in the bloc and is now basing its decision to block exports on “reciprocity” and “proportionality,” the European Commission announced in a March 24 news release. The EC will consider whether the destination country restricts its own exports of vaccines or their components and whether the COVID-19 infection and vaccination rates in the target country are better or worse than the EU's, it said. The EC said it also will consider whether a vaccine export will threaten the EU's inoculation rate. Seventeen countries previously exempt from restrictions are now under export control while 92 low- and middle-income countries remain exempt, it said.

The United Kingdom will establish four new trade and investment hubs in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and northeastern England to bolster its exporting ability, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss detailed in a March 23 news release. These Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Darlington hubs will house teams of export and investment specialists to help businesses maximize their export potential and access major trade markets, the release said. The Department for International Trade expects to have 550 staff at these hubs by 2025, with an ultimate goal of 750 by 2030. “I'm determined to use UK trade policy to benefit every part of the UK. These Trade and Investment hubs will help this country to an export and jobs-led recovery,” Truss said in the release. While technically launched in September, the Edinburgh hub will see a large surge in employees following this March 23 relaunch, the release said. The Darlington hub will also be the city's second major Department for International Trade site.