The UK is doing its level best to make Brexit as swift as possible and to keep it all as straightforward as possible, according to Iain Frenkiel of the British Department of International Trade.
He said the UK was currently involved in talks over some 40 trade agreements with at least 70 countries.
“In London legislation is going ahead in Parliament as we need around 15 pieces of legislation to enact Brexit while at the same time we have to develop an independent trade policy.” Frenkiel said no one had any interest or reason to make any of it more complicated than it already was.
“There are very few countries attempting to engage with this many bilateral partners all at the same time,” he said during a presentation in Cape Town recently. He said the fear and uncertainty of many traders around Brexit was to be expected and with that in mind efforts were under way to simplify things as much as possible and deliver as much continuity as possible.
“In terms of the EU agreements we have in place our goal is to make the minimum changes to those. In some places it may be just changing EU to UK. We are happy to do that if it means continuity for the here and now. We are trying to reassure businesses as much as we can. There is no benefit to us to complicate things,” he said.
