Breaking down the cloud of uncertainty brought about by Brexit into manageable bite-sized pieces was the objective of panelists at this afternoon’s London Wine Fair industry briefing. A panel of industry experts from political, economic, legal and business backgrounds framed the general “Brexit debate” hanging over the industry by looking at what can and can’t be predicted, and also by prioritising some of the concerns. One of the issues widely predicted to cause mass headaches following the referendum has been the effect of trade tariffs on producers exporting to the UK. But from an economics point of view, Dr Swati Dhingra from the London School of Economics argued that non-tariff barriers such as foreign investment will have the far bigger impact on GDP. “If we leave the single market and the EU, the impact on tariffs would be between 1% and 3% - probably around 1.5%. But non-tariff barriers, such as a lack of foreign investment, have the much bigger potential to contribute to a reduction of GDP.

Related links

Swati Dhingra CEP publications webpage:  http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/author.asp?author=dhingra

Read more... Harpers