Brexit: Trade Credit Extension Has To Be Good News

The UK Government has agreed with leading trade credit insurers to extend the Trade Credit Reinsurance Scheme until June 2021.

The objective of the 2021 scheme is to continue to support UK businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic and to aid economic recovery by providing targeted support via trade credit insurers.

Commenting on the extension of the Trade Credit Reinsurance Scheme until 30th June 2021, Stuart Ramsden, Regional Director at Atradius UK  said:

“Maintaining trade credit insurance cover for UK businesses is key to enabling trade and protecting supply chains. Trade credit protection is also important for the UK economy and its ability to overcome the challenges arising from the pandemic. From the early days of the pandemic, Atradius, alongside other leading providers and the ABI, worked very closely with Government representatives to develop this important support scheme and we welcome the confirmed extension.”

ABI COMMENT

Commenting on the extension of the Trade Credit Reinsurance Scheme til 30th June 2021, Graham Walsh, ABI Senior Policy Adviser, General Insurance said:

“Maintaining trade credit insurance cover between suppliers and their clients is a key component in enabling the UK economy to overcome some of the challenges arising from the pandemic. We’re pleased to have been able to help the Government agree an extension to the scheme, meaning UK businesses can continue to benefit from a greater level of protection from trade credit cover than might have otherwise been possible.”

More details of the extension can be found here on the Government’s website.

MORE GOOD NEWS ON GIBRALTAR

The tricky issue of Gibraltar looks set to be resolved slowly but surely, as the UK and EU agreed that Schengen Zone rules would apply from today for travellers moving across the border with Spain. The UK, Gibraltar and Spain now have a six month window to negotiate a treaty of the movement of people, services and goods in and out of the disputed territory. It will be difficult, but the compromise reached with the EU as regards Northern Ireland surely indicates that some kind of dual sovereignty arrangement can be cooked up, at least on paper.

In one sense Covid and all its restrictions across the globe has made Brexit something of an irrelevance. Given that digital ID, plus control and tracking of everything; goods, services and people, seems the most profound long-term outcome of Covid-19, the issue of any physical border checks is really about preventing low level smuggling and the ever present threat of terror activity. In those two areas it would be unwise for any nations to completely abolish border checks indefinitely, much as globalists would like that utopia to be the default position.