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good morning everyone and welcome to today's webinar about rebooting British exports to the EU brought to you by The Institute of export and international trade and given it's been about two years since brexit came into effect at the start of 2021 at least for exports anyway it's an opportune moment to take stock and reflect on the impact of of all changes and to look proactively at the opportunities that are still out there in the EU and how firms can grasp them my name is William Barnes Graham the executive editor at The Institute and I will be your host for this morning's webinar next slide please here you'll see that we have a pretty full agenda to get through today with some remarks from the government on the supports available to Traders at the start followed by two presentations covering firstly the rules for exporting Goods to the EU and then some tips on how to grow your market and this will cover non-customs aspects like e-commerce trade shows marketing and so on there will be opportunities for questions throughout the webinar but there is a dedicated slot at the end so please feel free to send in questions at any point and I'll come on to how you can do that shortly next slide please here you see we have a fantastic panel for today's webinar which includes a webinar regular in Suzanne aliquim and a debutant in Susan Rowe Suzanne has significant experience in trading Customs compliance having specialized in Regulatory Compliance for consumer goods in the chemicals and Plastics industry and Susan is also vastly experiencing International Trade particularly around e-commerce website internationalization and growing markets Food Distributors and trade shows before Susan and Suzanne however it is our delighted to be welcoming back Paul McCain the director of exports at the department for international trade Paul has significant experience in government and has been at dit since its formation in 2016. before handing over to pull away you'll see that we're going to begin today's webinar with a quick poll to find out a little bit more about you our audience so we are here going to ask you do you currently export goods to the EU and hopefully that's a relatively simple yes no answer while you are answering that poll some housekeeping notes for me firstly you can contact me with any comments or questions using the question panel on the control window to the right hand side of your screen we hope to get to a number of your questions today though please note that we cannot guarantee that we will get to every question in the allocated time as such I'll be prioritizing questions that have relevance to the wide audience so I won't be going into company or sector specific queries as such and please note that if your questions are short and clear I am more likely to be able to read them so please yeah keep them easy for me finally you will receive access to today's slide pack as well as a recording of a webinar in a follow-up email we will be sending before the end of the week so I'm going to close the poll now and share the results so 83 percent of you do commentary export to the EU and 17 of you do not so that's a very useful information for us as we go into a webinar about exporting your cvu so thank you everyone for responding to that poll on the next slideway it is my delight to pass over to Paul who's going to talk about the latest set of play in UK trade policy and for support available for exporters trading with the EU so over to you Paul brilliant thanks uh thanks William and uh good morning everybody and it's delightful to be back supporting The Institute of exports uh webinar this morning um listen I'd like to start by saying a few things and then getting into some specifics um it's probably worth me just reminding colleagues um the dit Department of State that deals with International Trade responsible for securing trade deals and to help exporters take advantage both of those deals and also other opportunities overseas um we're in something like 180 countries around the world we've got offices around the whole of the UK we've got sector specialist teams as well who are all the basically to support in that mission um it's worth reminding folks as well that the reason government has an exporting department or an international trade department is because there's a very strong evidence base that exporting is good for growth um we are the seventh in the world in terms of exporting economies which is not about a place to be for a country the size that we are we're second in the world in exports of service Services were 15th in the world when it comes to Goods but the reason behind getting behind exports and supporting businesses who want to export and want to expand their business that way is typically we see that exporting businesses are more productive they typically pay higher higher wages and they actually support almost a quarter of the jobs in the British economy so exporting is really really important you know from from that perspective but what we find is that there are and you will know this from your own experience of conceivable most of you have Tech that you've exported to the EU but never mind the EU if you've exported to anywhere you will know that there are costs uh attached to exporting you'll know that there's quite a bit of knowledge so that you have to build up um and there are other important things that you need which is confidence in uh you know your buyers and establishing yourself in those in the markets that you want to trade and those sorts of things um around cost knowledge uh you know trusted buyers Etc have become for many companies actually barriers and in some cases they affect the economics of whether the trade is is worth pursuing or not and um what I wanted to sort of share with you today is a little bit about what we are doing in that space and also to share with you some improvements we're making to the support that we can offer um in in all of that I mean it's worth me reminding you as well that I'd like to think that this department in particular is a department that is on your side um we don't actually own in this department most of the procedures or policies or things that you've got to deal with um and you know our primary mission is to either help you deal with those or to um to lobby and influence others to make that trading environment a downside easier than it is to dirty so um so it's these events are important to us because it gives us an opportunity to keep hearing how people are managing with things and what more that we need to be doing on our side so please please absolutely feel feel that um turning to the EU and the topic here as you know we've um we're now trading with the EU on a different basis since the 1st of January 2021 um trade has been uh sort of up and down over that period but I'm pleased to say that in the last four quarters to the end of 2021 we saw an 11 increase um compared to uh sorry to the uh yeah quarters up to quarter one 2022 we saw an 11 increase with the previous year so you know it's I would I would say that overall trade um you know we're definitely seeing an increase and the trend is in the right direction but maybe the pace of recovery is not as quick as we would have uh would have would have wanted um the EU is still a very very important trading partner to the UK okay huge amount of trade between um the two markets 500 595 billion uh is is the sort of figure for those who are counting um and what we're doing largely on on the EU side is there's two things first of all the teams that we have uh over in in Europe are starting to drive a different try and drive a different conversation um I mean it's easy to sort of get stuck on brexit and the changes and how people are adapting to those changes but we've got to start to change the conversation and we've got to get on on to you know where are the opportunities where can we still see some growth potential and how can we you know make sure that the UK is well positioned on that so there's there's a number of campaigns there's five that the the folks are running there at the moment one around green trade and this is very much on the back of com and the opportunities in Renewables and that sort of area um Supply chains which I know is a particularly challenging um challenging thing for all of us in the light of covert in particular and now we're seeing on the back of Russia's invasion of Ukraine um International Economic Security and this is um actually playing to some of the things that you will be alive to around the critical things that any economy needs for it to uh to to sort of succeed digital trade is fourth area and I know Susan has got a lot of experience and that will probably touch on some of that and then a campaign around how we can move the the sort of international trading environment um forward through the likes of the WTO and other bodies such as that also in the policy space we have I've got a team in my area that have been doing a lot of work with different business representative groups to say you know what are the persistent issues what more can we do to kind of Lobby for help on all of that so I just want to sort of reassure you that at the sort of policy and strategic level the department here is still committed to trying to improve our trading environment trying to open up those opportunities and trying to sort of change move the conversation on to an area where we can you know deal with the change and then sort of move move forward [Music] um so that's at a sort of that level getting down to more practical um measures of support and things that we can do to hopefully help you um some of you might be aware that we launched last year and Export support service quite quickly which was essentially in recognition of the fact that um there was just too much information too much guidance and depending on the the product that you were selling or the service you were selling it could all get rather complicated and difficult for you to navigate um the the bits of advice and the bits of um information that you needed to make sure that your your your export got through to the to the other side and at one level the helpline was a sort of um it put a wrapper over the rest of Whitehall and said listen if you're stuck ring these people and we will try and do that sort of chasing around the guidance for you in this department and then we'll we'll let you know what we think uh you need to to do and to date we've had something like 11 000 unique um businesses through that service um we've got pretty reasonable satisfaction rates people have sort of got what they wanted it didn't make it didn't remove the need to do the paperwork per se or to do the things that needed to be done but at least it helped them get to first base and understand the bits from the Oodles of guidance that's out there that they needed to make sure they were compliant with um so we've had uh as I say coming up on a year of running in fact it is roughly a year of running that particular service and a couple of things that we decided to do differently as a result of that we've been working on this over the last um the last few months and the first thing is we've created with colleagues in government a much simpler digital tool to help you get to the bits of paperwork and the bits of information that you need so there's a service on gov UK and I'm sure we can put the links around to participants in this call later and it's called the check how to export and import facility and that allows you to literally go in Click which Market you're selling to click in free search um the the item that you're selling in order to get your sort of commodity code uh ask a few more other questions but then that does the job of getting you to um the the sort of paperwork the forms you need to complete the agencies you need to to deal with Etc so we're quite excited about that we we're going to be giving that a bit more promotion from next week um so that people know that they can go there um probably at least at that level get to the information they want beyond that um what you can then do is let's just say you've engaged with all of that and you're still struggling um there's then a facility for you to ask a very specific question um that you can uh you can post to the team fix up a call if you want to speak to a trade specialist and the reason we ask people just to give us an inkling of what the issue is is it really does help us at this end to Route the call to the right person so if you come to us and say um you know I'm stuck on the paperwork and I just want to speak to someone just to make sure I've Got the Right End of the stick that's fine one of our trade Specialists will be on uh you can fix up a call with them they can talk you through it and hopefully get you over the hump on that and these are not um these are not scripted call agents these are experts who will be able to help you with that um but you might be saying to us and we've had this as well actually my goods are stuck at a porting um you know in Spain um no one's helping me in which case we can get our folks at post engaged in that to see if they can assist on those sorts of inquiries so um so what we're what we're looking for this to be is a much more deeper service in terms of the knowledge of the people on the the other end and then using that digital tool which I noticed William's stuck in the chat um for you to help get to first base through the various bits bits of paperwork and what have you um now that service at the moment uh currently supports uh trade with the EU and also having support uh anyone who is confused with the situation on uh sanctions in Russia Ukraine Belarus the situation around there um but again from next week we're expanding the service to cover the whole of Eastern Europe and Central Asia as well so that brings in Armenia Azerbaijan all the stands um turkey which I know is also a popular trading destination for the UK and we hope that by um March of next year at the very latest that service will cover the world so that you know you some of you who have said yes you trade with the EU might also be trading with other parts of the world and we want to expand this service so it covers all of that as well so um I think that's probably all I was going to cover in my sort of session well and I think you had a few questions that you might want to grab me on before yes thank you both that's uh that's terrific to hear a particularly um support from ESS which is getting a more enhanced and kind of triaging aspect as well sounds really useful as well so thank you for sharing that update um if you've just move to the next slide just well I'm going to ask for a couple of questions we've been sent in I'm just going to again ask you a poll just asking you how has brexit impacted your exports to the EU and the options of our on screen um so Paul just while people answering that we've had a few questions in a few people are asking about obviously the current uh climate in terms of what's going on in the markets and so on obviously the pound weakened a lot a couple of weeks ago but it's it's rebounded a little bit since but how is dit supporting traders to kind of make the most potentially of a weakening uh currency in the UK yeah um so I mean a couple of things I would say on that brand um first of all and I think your the audience will be alive to this as well there's two sides of a coin here there's definitely an opportunity uh in the sense that if if you're if your goods are cheaper to overseas buyers then you become more attractive as a proposition uh to have them sort of bought but equally that weekend currency can feed through into your input costs and we know of all of our exports in the UK around 18 of uh the cost is based on Imports uh sort of feeding through so it is it is sort of two sides of a coin and for some businesses this can be potentially good news and orders go out for people overseas stock up massively um in in other scenarios you might be on the wrong side of that coin and it can still be quite a challenge in terms of what we typically do I can tell you that posts overseas particularly the post where there are lots of goods exports will be you know reminding uh the markets that they're in not in any sort of public way but you know when I was out in Hong Kong for a few years and uh you know the currencies uh took a bit of a battering during uh some of the brexit talks um you know we're quick to sort of push hard to say you know the UK is now good value so I think um we you know my colleagues overseas will be doing that anyway um but but as I say two sides of a coin to be balancer I almost forgot to put myself off mute uh yeah absolutely and I think um we did an article recently about the impact I can't see which says based something very similar so if um yeah absolutely it's it's all a two-way process um one more question at this stage um this comes from Harry who says we've not been able to attend any trade shows in Europe since covid how can we access support to attend shows and what does this support look like right well I mean yeah covid has really I think you know I I always say to people um you know um export or trade it's a contact sport and there's no substitute for being at those trade shows um either attending or indeed exhibiting um because it's your best chance to to make those connections find some buyers and that's what a lot of our guys here in overseas do so um so we still uh so we kicked off this year um a trade show support sort of programmer UK trade show program again I think we probably find the link for colleagues so they know which shows we're supporting and what support is on offer um essentially we launched this in November last year after it literally disappearing largely because of covid there's two elements that we offer people particularly now that travel is beginning to to normalize a bit the first is if you're looking at exhibiting at an overseas trade show then you can make an application for usually grant funding up to around four thousand pounds towards the cost um of that um but we introduced a new element this year as well um which allows you to actually just attend so maybe you've never entered a particular Market before you're not ready to sort of um uh you know to go for the full investment of exhibiting but you'd like to go like to sort of suss it out um and again you can apply to visit um you get a session with the export Academy who will talk you through about you know what you're likely to see how best how to get the most out of it um so I think you know to the question yes we're getting back to normal we're starting to ramp up our support for people to either exhibit or attend at trade shows um actually I noticed William again has put the link in there so please um you know step forward and uh and unapply if you want to get involved I should say the shows that we're supporting largely you will find will have a bigger presence so there's likely to be a bigger UK impact when you get there and we think that helps you as well because usually Fringe events going on that you can tap into as well thanks Paul um and yeah as I suppose uh alluded to I'm posting some of the links as fast as I can in the chat and I'll post a link to ESS in a moment as well I just want to share the results of the poll thank you everyone for answering so honestly uh 45 of you saying we trade less only four percent trading more but a quarter View trading about the same and six percent uh have not exported to the EU uh previously I mean Paul does that tally with with what you've been seeing in the data um it um it does um and I would say that um and you can see you can see that as I said you know trade is recovering but it's not recovering particularly on Goods trade anything like the rate that we'd like to see um I think uh my sense also and this is why I mentioned before is how do we move the conversation on because actually the the um you know the rules of trade that we have with the EU there are some exciting things and I know the Institute are working on some of these to try and make the process a little less sort of painful for business but um we've got to change some of the conversation and get back to the sorts of things that we would do normally which is look for opportunities promote those to UK businesses try and Garner an appetite for UK goods and services because you know the UK is still admired for its goods and services and we we must focus in on that and keep going but um you know still work in progress and still more to do for sure thank you thank you for that's I think a really important message to to finish on for this part I think so thank you once again Paul for joining us today and I know you all need to dash before the end of the webinar so you may not be around for the Q a at the end but it's it's been great hearing from you again about the support from government for exporters but for now bearing in mind we do have a fair bit to get through on the next slide it is my Delights to hand over to Suzanne to talk through the post brexit rules exporters need to know about and tips for compliance over to you Suzanne thanks very much will so if you want to start looking at exporting goes to the EU or you want to reboot your exports because you have found that the new requirements are quite daunting and quite interesting to see that 45 have had a negative experience and we've got 83 percent of our callers today who do already export then we have got some really useful information here to help you try and gain that confidence in exporting your goods to the EU so hopefully if we are seeing that negative impact it is only going to be a short-term issue so what has changed what are the new requirements the most significant change as we know is that the EU has left the European Union's Customs Union and that we are now operating under a Free Trade Agreement however it doesn't mean that everything is free and that we can therefore operate in the same way that we always did under the Customs Union so we just need to have that understanding of what the new conditions of the trade agreement are and how that helps us to carry out our exports if I could have the next slide please so the UK EU Trade Agreement is called the TCA this is the trade and cooperation agreement part one is broken down into five chapters and it covers things like Market access rules of origin sanitary and fighter sanitary measures also known as SPS and this is what both parties are going to do to protect human life animal life and plant life as well as the health within its territories so it's a really important area it ought to States as well that no unnecessary barriers to trade can be put in place and finally it covers customs and trade facilitation which talks about the simplification and modernization of Customs procedures and this is something that Paul's just quickly mentioned that we're going to be working to in the future along with government departments and what we see here as well is the adoption of the WTO the World Trade Organization and the wco the world Customs organization rules therefore the reason an actual basis to the agreement that we've got that should benefit both parties and then the execution of the agreement this is the final detail that we need to look at and this is what we are interested in as Traders next slide please so to start with you need to understand your products so that they can be classified using the UK integrated tariff as products can be unique the commodity code is a common language that's used by Customs all over the world to understand the goods that are being presented to them commodity codes are eight digit codes at export and they will be used by Customs agents when completing export custom declarations and this task Customs about the goods that are moving through the Border it defines the amount of Duty and that that then will become due at import on the other side what the requirements are on the Customs entry and whether you would need an export license or any special authorizations or certificates the trader can use the tower Checker to also check the origin requirements on the TCA as well so can you comply with requirements that would allow the Importer to be able to zero rate the goods and not pay any Duty when they import if they're using preferential origin next slide please and there are different terminologies that we hear when we talk about rules of origin and these can be quite daunting but it's not about where the goods come from it's about its economic nationality so if you think about when you go abroad you take a flight to America you're still British and the same principle sort of applies to the goods so let's start with the originating and non-originating if gods are originating they are classed as wholly obtained in that country this could be live animals that are born and raised there or mineral products that are extracted from its ground if gods are not wholly obtained then they might meet other criteria such as the changing of a chapter heading or a subheading of the commodity code again you can see this on the UK integrated tariff online this is about the process of transformation of a product for example turning flower into bread or we could be turning milk into cheese that then is going to be transformed to go onto a pizza so the components may not be originating but the actual process is sufficient enough to change components into a different output and this changes the chapter heading or the subheading and it means that a product can still be called UK origin in the eutca we also have a principle called the max non percentage which calculates the value of non-originating materials used in the product and if you check the commodity commodity code in the TCA it will tell you the percentage that is allowed and then once Incorporated up to the percentage level you can declare the goods as UK origin and again this can be quite daunting and that's something that the Institute can help you with if you want any assistance with understanding UK origin requirements if none of the requirements are met then the goods are classed as non-originating and they're likely to retain that economic nationality so for example if you import leather shoes from Italy and then you want to sell those shoes on to another country they will remain as Italian origin they will not become UK origin when we start to look up the trade agreements that we have in place we now see that origin can be preferential or non-preferential and these terms only relate when you're trading under a trade agreement if Goods meet the requirements of the agreement or preferential origin so in our case goods that are of UK origin was sold to the EU those goods can benefit from zero tariff rates so to determine if the goods are preferential we need to determine if they originate or not non-preferential origin is where you cannot meet the terms of the agreement and then the WTO allows countries to apply their own measures such as Duty rates and to protect their local trade with tools such as subsidies quotas or anti-dumping measures so for example if we want to ship our Italian shoes back to the EU these are now of non-preferential origin and the EU will apply its own measures such as Duty against the import of these products the origin declaration at import on the Customs entry will be used to determine how much Duty in Bat is due or if preference can be applied it will zero rate the import Duty Customs therefore require evidence to prove this they need the proof of origin and the TCA tells you the forms of proof of origin that are acceptable we have a statement on Origin or a suppliers declaration and it also gives us the text that we need to use and where we can put this so for example we can write it onto our commercial documents or we can print information onto a letterhead please note that it's not mandatory for supplies to issue the proof of origin therefore if you cannot prove UK origin you cannot provide this statement and the Importer cannot benefit from preference or zero rated duty at import and it is important that this information is provided to the Customs agent to ensure that preference is not misdeclared and that a compliant customs declaration is issued next slide please so on this slide I just wanted to run through the export process and how we involve other parties to assist the exporter so at the beginning there on the left hand side the exporter agrees a contract with an overseas company to buy their products at this stage Key conditions such as incoterms to know what your responsibilities are and where the risk changes need to be determined the Importer sends over their purchase order to confirm the contract which the exported knowledge is the exporter then prepares the order and carries out the administration side of the export they will need to obtain any export licenses and authorizations they may want to put export Credit Insurance in place or Marine insurance and then they can send the booking over to the forwarder along with an invoice a packing list and any relevant certificates to support that export the Border will then raise the export declaration and process the cargo declaration to the transit procedure they will apply Security checks and issue the security declaration and then they can clear the goods for export on the goods vehicle movement service the gvms once this is all in place the carrier can arrange to collect the goods issue any way bills and then carry the gusts to the destination when the shipment has been delivered they will close down that Transit movement and obtain a proof of delivery for the goods for the exporter the Importer can prepare for the import coming to them by making sure that they have all the correct licenses and permissions in place and as exporter you may have to send them over to them to help them because you've got to prove that origin or you may have to prove or SPS schools you may require particular certificates and licenses that they need to put into place in their side so you may have to actually assist the Importer with the information that they need the Importer may also want to arrange their own transport to collect the goods from a specific location such as a port or an airport and the final part of the sale is to issue the invoice to the Importer and this is a request for payment of the goods delivered the Importer can then make payment ing to the terms of the invoice which the exporter follows up with their bank for receipt of payment and that then closes that International Trade Loop next slide please so the export documents that you need are firstly to be used to cross Customs borders provide evidence for suppliers and for customers of the transaction and thirdly for you as a Trader to be able to create your own records to record the transactions and hold documents on file to be presented to hmrc at their request to evidence that a transaction has taken place we need to go back to the contract a customer wants to buy product and a supplier wants to sell product so this can be an official contract with its own terms and conditions or it could just be a purchase order that's been raised by a buyer and sent to the seller to confirm the conditions of purchase when the goods are dispatched the seller raises a commercial invoice this details the buyers and sellers information including their vat and or their iori number the product information the value of the goods incoterms commodity code any references of licenses or certificates and the weights and dimensions of the packaging the payment terms Bank details and any statements on Origin that we need to include on there too the packing list is used to confirm details to carriers and is often in the same format as a commercial invoice without product values the weights and dimensions must match what is on the invoice and the carrier will use the invoice and the packing list to create their transport and Transit documentation and the Customs agent will use the documents to create the export Customs entry transport documents are important to evidence the international Journey they may also be required by the Importer to gain access to the goods and to actually clear them through the Customs to prove that they are going to be the Importer of record there and the Customs documents these are the official export movement departure advice the c88 and the S8 documents and any extra licenses or certificates such as export licenses for controlled Goods or the export Health certificates for products of animal or plant origin and if you are audited by hmrc they will ask for full sets of documents to be sent to them for evidence from the very beginning of that chain to the end of the chain so including the purchase order the documents that got the goods through the Border as well as the payment so they will look at that full audit Trail next slide please in order to zero rate the invoice the exporter must obtain proof of export to prove to UK Customs that the gods exited the UK territory once the invoice has been created the goods must leave the UK within 12 weeks otherwise vat will be due on the invoice hmrc require official evidence of the export which is the export entry and Commercial evidence which is the invoice and packing list the transport document a proof of delivery and proof of payment from the overseas country you need to be able to document the movement from that very first transaction all the documents must be helpful six years and this can be in hard copy or electronically but they must be readily available for hmrc if requested in the event of an audit it's also a good practice to have a standard operating procedure in place to manage this and ensure that staff who are working with forwarders and intermediaries understand the importance of the regular follow-up and record-keeping requirements of hmrc hmrc will back date vat against the records that don't comply and although they may audit a sample they could actually go back through all the records if they thought that a Trader was avoiding the payment of VAT on purpose next slide please so you can the EU now operates separate regimes for product safety the trading cooperation agreement covers product safety in chapter four on technical barriers to trade on the legal side the regulations are enforced through the UK statutory instrument which is the general product safety regulations of 2005. and the EU directive the EU regulation of 2019 1020 the market surveillance and compliance of products these directives give General guidance on product safety in order to implement the regulatory requirements companies need to look at the relevant standards for the products both the UK and EU have agreed to use harmonized international standards allowing for the alignment of both regimes and cooperation on Market surveillance next slide please so as a Trader you need to understand the UK legislation and the standards that apply to your products and check that they are compliant you can look into printing any over labels of the ukca mark for now and there is a waiver in place at the moment while some products are undergoing testing where the ukca mark can be applied where previously the products were approved under CE marking if you're selling it to Northern Ireland or the EU you can also display the CE Mark alongside the ukca mark As long as you are compliant with both sets of regulations and if you manufacture in Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland market then the UK and a mark applies the technical documents will refer to UK legislation and standards and authorities and where required submitted for Conformity assessment the Declaration of Conformity can then be issued and all new documentation can be shared with the supply chain and just a reminder that the new deadline to be fully ukca compliant has now been extended to the 1st of January 2026. so back to will thank you very much fantastic Susan uh Suzanne fit in a lot there so thank you so much for giving that uh overview some divorce for exports and again we'll probably look to do further webinars in this so we're going more into depth about kind of that part of the webinar and the next part as well but um thank you very much and as you can see we're going to do one last poll just asking you what your main challenge is when exporting to the EU and again the options are on screen there um just for people are answering that poll uh Suzanne a couple of questions sorry it's a tricky one today but um we've had a question from John who's asked Are there specific benefits to AEO status in terms of smoothing the export process to export to EU customers um that's a very good question um yes um so AEO certification it demonstrates that your role within the international supply chain is secure and that your Customs controls and procedures are efficient and compliant so everything that we've just been speaking about um you've got all of that um in good control and all compliant within your company and AEO is that certification that you're allowed to use to demonstrate to other traders that shows that you do have that level of Customs compliance it's also mutually recognized in the EU and other countries such as America China or Japan and it can be a prerequisite when you're tendering for new businesses quite a lot of companies are now actually asking for this so that they know the level of the the company that they're operating with there are currently two different types available so we've got AOC which is for Customs simplification this focuses on establishing the internal quality management controls for Customs compliance and we also have the aeos excuse me which is for Safety and Security and this focuses on supply chain security measures and the benefits are greater access to Priority clearance reduced Administration reductions of waivers of deferment and comprehensive guarantees increased Transport Security you can get fewer delays in dispatch um it also improves the security between supply chain partners and it gives you that quicker access to other Customs authorizations such as inward processing or Customs Warehouse if you've already gone through the process to get that standard in place for AEO it may help you put some other regimes in place so yes there's quite a lot of benefits and definitely worth looking at thanks uh thanks Suzanne I'm just going to close the poll now to share the results uh 47 of you say compliance with post brexit rules 32 a few additional costs uh relatively few under reputation and lack of Market access and then 15 other so thank you everyone for answering that thumbs up yes and so I want to ask we've had loads of questions in but quite a lot on this in particular this is around samples um so I just want to put this to use Suzanne it's this one Claire who says we still have a major problem getting samples into Europe as this is the basic requisite for any new business Prospect it means that we have been unable to add any new European customers to our portfolio since brexit quite drastic stuff um I mean what is the advice on this issue yes and I think if you think sort of pre-breaks it you were just putting it in a box send it with a curry and it just arrived and what we have now is that all samples they have to go through that Customs clearance process at importing to to the EU and this is often the issue that Traders are coming across because the EU customers don't want to firstly take care of any Customs formalities or pay any duty of v80 if they're applicable on the samples so what I would recommend is that you have a look at the rules for low value because this is where Duty and vat don't apply so that would at least eliminate the need to pay that you can also ensure that the value of goods is below that level when you dispatch them and just to be aware that you do need to declare the real value of goods so don't just make it tough and say it's it's worth five pounds it is something that Customs certainly in Europe are doing they're open things up and having a look and just checking that um you can also use couriers to send samples door-to-door they can also help and assist with the clearance if the customers don't want to do that so if there are any charges they can actually send that back to you so again it's possibly worth having a chat with your Courier providers to see if they're able to offer this service for you there is a special authorization in place that couriers do have to handle low value Imports in a certain way so again worth worth having a chat with your um your account manager with a quiz just to see if that's something that they may be able to assist you with then hopefully it should get you past those issues if the European customers know that it's going to be handled for them thank you Suzanne we've had absolutely loads of um Customs questions about CDs and different processes and so on uh we are going to be continuing to do loads of webinars on those sorts of topics so do keep your eyes peeled for those and I'll post a link in a second before a link to our technical helpline which is very much designed for members of The Institute to get answers on those sorts of questions but time is off the essence so thank you uh Suzanne that was a great Whistle Stop tour of some of the compliance requirements uh can I have a next slide though please foreign Global exhibition is taking place in November it's part of a business show and going global brings together a wide range of experts business supports organizations and Traders and is this year focusing on providing education and support around free trade agreements International strategy and cultural and economic differences in international markets we'd recommend you go into this free show anyway but as you can see on the side The Institute is going to have quite a significant presence there so you should definitely come see us on stand g281 if you do you could enter a prize draw for a free Customs compliance health check get a free inquiry on our helpline if you're a non-member or freeplace on our introductory courses if you're a member the URL for more information is export.org.uk forward slash going underscore Global underscore offer we will share this with everyone after the webinar uh but on the next side again as I said times of the essence I just wanted to point that out particularly as if you're around uh there's a there's another vehicle for getting answers to some of your questions but it's my Delights to hand over to Susan Rowe who's going to talk a little bit about some of the other some of the other stuff when it comes to trade with the EU and that could be a trade shows as just mentioned uh or more broadly growing your Market in the EU so over to you Susan okay thanks very much will thank you I'm just going to ask um if you could move on to the next slide please because I just want to start with setting the scene a little bit here um so before we exited the union we were dealing with one entity uh now we're actually dealing with 27 different countries different member states um and amongst those 27 countries are actually 24 official languages and not only 24 official languages but there are also different ways of doing business so the north of Europe for example conducts business in a different way to southern Europe where relationships are far more important um so we've got the different languages we've got the different cultures what we've also got is different fat weights as well so multiple vat rates across the those 27 member states and that's particularly important for businesses who are selling online to Consumers through their websites well of course the bat has to be charged at the point of checkout in addition to that we've also got some differences in importing Goods into some of those 27 member states where different labeling requirements are do Prevail so just to recap we are dealing with 27 different countries now rather than just one entity so when businesses are looking to grow their customers or reach customers in those markets those are some of the considerations we need to be aware of the other interesting Trend that's happened in the last couple of years which has obviously been fueled by the pandemic is our awareness of being digital Savvy as well um so all our education or most of our education has now moved online or did move online for a good few years uh training moved online the way we conducted business moved online um and in the retail space we saw a massive Uplink lift in online purchases and from customers who probably didn't purchase online before that but they still do now that's not going to go back that Trend and we've also seen uh from a McKinsey study that was a undertaken that 81 of business to business decision makers now are expecting some sort of digital interaction during that buying and decision making process so what that means for businesses is that we've had to move into a more digital transformation model for selling so there are several different ways that we uh are channels that we can use for selling and I just want to touch on a couple of those that we are currently using um enable to just develop them a little bit more so we can get more traction out of them so if I can ask to move to the next slide please so most businesses on the call today have got their own website some businesses will be using e-commerce platforms some will be going to trade shows some will be using other platforms and activity to get their business noticed or some may be doing a mixture of all of those next slide please so let's first of all have a look at websites every company website has the ability and potential to reach 4.6 billion internet users in the world probably about 10 of those are in the EU or in Europe and um so it offers a website also offers the ability to control the customer Journey control the customer experience across our websites and also gather data along that Journey which can then be used as intelligence for future marketing activity back in the old days we used to just build websites sit back and then they will come it's not like that anymore and hasn't been for a number of years and it's actually changed a lot again over the last couple of years so a website website should not be a case of just build it and they will come in order to get the right traction from our desired customers we need to Target we need to ask ourselves who is our audience who we who do we want to Target through our website we also need to determine what countries we want to Target remember in the EU alone there are 24 different language languages so if our websites aren't optimized and localized for those particular Target markets how are we expecting them to reach our website and appeal to what we have to offer what we do need to provide on our websites now more importantly than than ever because a website is an extremely crowded place we want ours to stand out when someone lands on our website we want them to be able to see what do we do how well do we do it and who do we do it for so this is forming a part of our value proposition those 81 percent of decision makers want to be able to see immediately what the value is in your business it doesn't necessarily have to be the products on their own it could be the customer service what do you do well that makes you stand out from competitors that all needs to be fed into this value proposition that needs to be seen as soon as somebody lands on your website once they are on the website and like what they see then we want to invite them to to do a call to action so that call to action could be call us now download something um but order a demo or book a demo we want them to do something before we leave a website but quite often what we see is that the user interface and user experience which are two terms that are often interchange but actually they're quite different the user interface is the actual nuts and bolts of the website how easy is it for me to do what you want me to do are those call to action buttons big enough that stand out and then that user experience what does that Journey look like from the web through the website and how effective effective is it for the target audience and the target countries that you want to come through your website window and then taking it further as well so once they have clicked on a call to action what's the next step of the journey if they call you what happens after that and quite often that's where some businesses can can fall down if if that process isn't in place as well and the last point on the slide there localize and optimize for overseas markets absolutely important the more we localize and optimize the closer we are to our customers in the EU and indeed further afield next slide please there's some other developments particularly in the e-commerce space as well what we've seen the EU alone has around about 440 million consumers that we have access to they're not all going to want to buy our particular Goods but there is potential to access tap into that market and we've also seen an increase in the amount of horizontal and vertical online marketplaces so vertical being that it's sector specific a Marketplace like Etsy for example would be considered a vertical Marketplace and there are then a horizontal Marketplace is something like Amazon that goes into several product categories and is a global um a global Marketplace but Amazon and eBay although the founding fathers they're not the only uh web um online marketplaces the you're alone has about 60 online marketplaces uh particularly in the b2c space and they're spread all over the EU so if e-commerce is part of your business model and you haven't yet discovered the e-commerce platforms that's definitely something that that's worth considering not least because the e-commerce platforms are actually already optimized and localized for the customers that you want to sell to and interestingly despite challenging economic conditions there has been a huge uplift in B2B online marketplaces as well it increased in 2021 by something like 131 in in sales and there's been a big shift in the in the rise in the number of marketplaces and also the type of marketplaces so now businesses can actually in the health care sector for example they can go on to a Marketplace and actually find buyers for their particular products or if they're a distributor overseas they can actually go on and find products and suppliers as well so there's been a lot of movement in the B2B e-commerce space particularly in the area of online marketplaces so definitely something to explore there for you next slide please Paul mentioned something about trade shows earlier in his talk saying that there's no substitute for trade shows I would completely agree with that and that's probably why 95 of exhibitors prefer to do so in person rather than at virtual events now what we've seen in the last couple of years are a mixture of hybrid trade shows we've seen virtual trade shows but as soon as they opened up again and trade shows was actually the industry that was hardest hit and first hit when everything shut down during the pandemic but as Paul said things are starting to open up again and people are flocking towards trade shows particularly in Europe because Germany has the biggest number of trade shows as well so as I said businesses are going towards that they're getting on Planes Trains Automobiles and going over to trade shows because nothing replaces that tactile and tangible um approach to oiling the wheels to do good business um something to bear in mind as well as what Paul said about support available from dit is that there has been an uplifting digital touch points as well that circles back to the fact that digital transformation has taken a huge uprise so what we're seeing at trade shows now is the a larger use of QR codes instead of business cards for example we're also seeing more interactive digital displays the use of augmented and virtual reality because it's about impressing people want to go to trade shows now and they want to be impressed by some digital and augmented reality activity we've also seen a big uplift in online meet the buyer event so for those of you who do go to trade shows you'll notice that in advance you can do matchmaking Services you can arrange to meet Distributors on your stand all done through this digital portal before you actually end up at the show and more often than not now businesses are recognizing that if they do offer a QR code they want they're exhibiting exhibitor um visitor to actually scan that QR code and go straight to a landing page on their website where there's a great call to action and some of that follow-up activity then has already been done next slide please okay there are some other ways of getting your business noticed as well some companies who are still operating from a work from home or work from the office a few days a week have a spare boardroom for example so that spare room could be used to create some very fundamental corporate videos um that can be done in-house they don't need to go into a recording studio for example and also offering value added so something like a Blog where you're not only talking about your product but you're giving how to and other value-added information online directories play a huge part as well they can be found online by doing research get your business business profile they can be country and Industry specific and of course the use of Social and professional media platforms I probably don't need to tell you that LinkedIn for business to business professionals is absolutely Paramount in in today's world particularly in the digital scene I'm going to stop there thank you will terrific thank you Susan minutes it's a huge area of trade uh one we've not touched on enough recently and we'll definitely look to go into these big areas in more detail in the coming months but a great sort of a reminder of just some of those things which businesses do need to uh keep on considering um so we'll do just a couple more questions I appreciate we're over running slightly so uh we'll just just do a couple more questions for uh Susan at this point uh first of all uh question from Martin who asked about websites is it better to have one single website with multiple languages or multiple different websites one for each language that's a really really good question and it really does depend on the resource the skill set who you're trying to Target which countries you're trying to Target now most businesses will use their existing.com website to add pages for different countries in different languages because that way they're only managing one website if however the sales are really really good in the market and you really want to be present digitally in that market why not set up a standalone.de for Germany for example but bearing in mind that not only will that de website be localized and optimized for Germany what happens when your German customers come onto that site and they want to speak to someone in German so that's a consideration you're giving a local experience so they will want a local experience as well so just to sum up then for most businesses are.com slash d e would it be perfectly fine and it will reach the customers but a dot d e Standalone website will get even closer to your customer thank you Susan I hope that's helpful uh Martin I think it was a few people asking about e-commerce I'll do this one quickly from Alison before we wrap up Alison asks how can UK e-commerce experts exporters remain competitive from a delivery cost perspective when competing with national e-commerce businesses within the international markets it's another really really good question I just want to start with saying that um you know a lot of UK brands are unparalleled across the world so um you know people overseas in different countries do want Our Brands and our products uh completely get about the delivery issue so um if you fit if your sales do not exceed 150 Euros to Europe then you can use What's called the iOS vat scheme and so that's one one potential possibility what we're also seeing as well is a lot more 3pl's or third-party logistic companies setting up in the EU so perhaps you could send some Consignments over and then they are packed and picked in your web so one more poster to the customer and two uh the delivery costs will be uh less um I think that's probably two um two different options the third could be what we're also seeing is TurnKey solution businesses popping up over Europe that manage the whole e-commerce area for UK businesses so that that could be something also to consider gets you closer to the customer thank you Susan um and on that note we have had a lot of questions we try to get to a few but we also want to just give up that real overview of kind of the the important factors and exports and so we hope you have found that useful I'd like to thank once again Paul Suzanne and Susan uh for the presentations and answers there I hope you have found that useful um if we didn't get to your question today I've posted a few links in the chats including technical helpline in terms of how you can get those questions answered also data back on our previous webinars we've had quite a few questions on Customs processes Uh custom decoration service all those sorts of things which we have covered in previous webinars so please do look at our library and I'll make sure to include a link to that in the follow-up email before we go over just a quick reminder that we will be sending all registrants of recording of today's webinar along with a copy of the slides above the end of the week please get in touch if for any reason visible doesn't get through to your main inbox we do hear this happens sometimes so get in touch with anyone from the team having con services are export to Auto your case that don't want to contact as you leave please do let us know what you thought of today's webinar and any suggestions for four topics on future webinars by completing the exit survey but for now thank you for joining us today and I hope you have a great rest of the week uh bye everyone goodbye