UK Companies Continue To Stockpile Ahead Of Brexit

The Irish Times reports:

Companies in the North are continuing to stockpile as the UK’s official departure date from the EU on January 31st approaches and a significant percentage of companies view the “Boris Brexit deal” as “detrimental to business”, a new survey shows.

The Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, which has a 1,200-strong membership that employs 100,000 people, said feedback from its latest Brexit Watch survey showed that the continuing uncertainty surrounding Brexit has had “largely negative knock on effects” on Northern companies.

Global Chain News reports:

The concerns follow comments from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who described securing a comprehensive agreement covering all aspects of Brexit as ‘impossible’ within the UK’s current EU membership transition period, which expires at the end of 2020, drawing particular attention to potential barriers for British manufacturing.

With British food and pharmaceutical companies potentially experiencing disruption to frictionless trade in the near future, manufacturers, retailers and the warehousing sector may need to find further storage space to cope with demand around stockpiling food and medicine.

Matt Watson, sales manager at Aggreko, says: “Last week’s comments from President Von der Leyen on the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and trade means that stockpiling is back on the agenda for many companies, particularly in the food and pharmaceutical sector.”

Aggreko is a Glasgow-based maker of cold storage equipment and emergency power generators. Global Chain News is a B2B newsletter.