Quote Originally Posted by sbrt View Post
The problem for trade, is that business likes stability. Currency fluctuations and brexit cause uncertainty. Big companies can mitigate against this, to a point, but it eats away at confidence. Smaller companies often cannot.
I agree with this to a point.

In my business, which has been mostly in footwear manufacturing and importing which was my industry from 1983 to 2012 ish, there have been a few "shocks" which have had quite dramatic effects on the footwear industry in the UK.

We've seen a few currency shocks and mostly they are managed.

The ones that my industry finds it hardest to adjust to are the EU trade measures.

Anti-dumping duty up to 98% on some products from the Far East and some ADD has been in place at varying levels since 1998 to date.
Quota - works a bit like fishing quota - importers only allowed to bring in a certain number of some product groups.

Mostly these measures have been politically motivated and create huge issues for companies.

I once visited a factory in Fuzhou in around 2003. They had worked with the company (a German footwear company I worked for)since the early 90s. They met all the audit requirements and the Germans were making good progress in terms of helping the factory to continually improve.

In 1998 however, at 24 hours notice, the EU introduced 98% ADD and 7-8 years of a partnership was brought to an end.
The factory would have been finished, but for a large South American business that came in to work with it.

The German company moved it's orders to Vietnam which was largely unaffected by the trade maeasures in this product group.

So the measures didn't stop Far East shoes coming in to the EU, they really were pointless and only caused harm.