The British car industry has once again urged the government for a free trade agreement with the EU. That is desperately needed, because the results in January were not to write home about again.
Reuters reports that 118,314 cars came from the British production line in January, 2.1 percent less than a year earlier. Strikingly enough, exports did well, but not well enough to compensate for a decline of no less than 23.9 percent in domestic sales. It is precisely because of the great importance of these exports that the car factories are now asking for help from the government. “A free trade agreement would put an end to long-term uncertainty and put the UK back on the map as a great country to produce cars,” said Mike Hawes, head of industry association Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
The call comes at the right time, because in the period between the official withdrawal from the EU on 31 January and 2021, there is extensive consultation between the British and the EU about the conditions that apply from 1 January.
Japanese manufacturers in particular build many cars for the European market on the well-known and much-discussed island on the other side of the North Sea. Honda already announced that it would close the Swindon factory in 2021, but other manufacturers are reportedly not passing through the Brexit without setbacks.