“It has always been inevitable that if you change the exact nature of your trade relationship with the EU, it would have an impact on trade flows,” the chancellor told lawmakers on Monday. Sunak’s comments came after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the financial watchdog, said Britain “seems to have become a less trade-intensive economy” in recent years. The OBR has previously predicted that Brexit will eventually hit 15% of the value of trade for the British economy. Analysts said last week: “These effects are likely to take several years to fully realize, so just one year after the end of the transition period and given the difficulty of removing the impact of the pandemic, it will continue to keeps this case under review “. However, despite the overall decline in UK trade since leaving the EU, the analysis reveals that Britain’s exit is not necessarily responsible. It is clear that Britain lost the ship in an explosion after the Covid-19 in trade volume. Global exports are about 10% above pre-pandemic levels and about 5.5% higher in advanced economies. In the United Kingdom, however, exports are still around 12% lower. What is less clear is Brexit’s responsibility for this difference, with the pandemic also playing a key role. Following the agreement, exports to the EU recovered rapidly. In January 2021, following the agreement, UK exports to Epirus fell 44% to ,6 7.6 billion, compared with a year earlier. That, however, recovered to ,8 12.8 billion in two months, according to end-2020 levels. At the start of the lockdown, meanwhile, Britain’s export volumes fell – by about 15% in the three months to May, when the Brexit deal went into effect.
