UK losing up to £6.5bn a year in EU trade due to mismatched product rules

IPPR finds failure to align testing standards has forced companies to abandon exporting to EU and is costing costing 0.18% of national income

The UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing.

In the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the IPPR thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs.

Motor vehicle and part exports would have been between £2.48bn and £3.42bn higher each year.

Electronic exports could have been between £1.17bn and £1.67bn higher.

Pharmaceutical exports would have had an estimated annual uplift of between £740m and £820m.