LONDON (dpa-AFX) – The recession and the consequences of Brexit are also affecting German companies in Great Britain. A survey on future expectations gave a rather mixed picture, said the head of the German-British Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) in London, Ulrich Hoppe, the German news agency said. However, he stressed that the outlook for the British economy was significantly worse.
“This has to do with the fact that German companies that are in the market here are generally more competitive and are therefore in a better position,” said Hoppe. “But of course they also suffer from the fact that the economy here isn’t growing as it would have if Brexit hadn’t happened.”
There are around 2,500 German companies active in the UK, employing around 450,000 people. According to a survey of the German Industry UK association conducted on about twenty German bigwigs, they complained of the increase in costs, the increase in bureaucracy and the delays from Brexit. Britain drops out of Germany’s top ten trading partners for the first time in 2022.
Fewer and fewer German companies are coming to Britain, even though the country is doing well in two future-oriented industries with offshore wind and hydropower, said AHK boss Hoppe. The pharmaceutical sector, with its excellent research location, also has a good future. “A lot is going to happen here,” Hoppe said.
At the same time, he stressed that due to Brexit-tightened immigration rules, there is a shortage of skilled workers. The expert does not expect the British side to deviate from the strict regulations: “The current government is more interested in limiting immigration”.
Germany is still the second most important trading partner for the British, Hoppe said. However, the decline in trade figures has shown that Britain trades much less overall than in the past. “There was this whole ‘Global Britain’ idea. At the moment it’s still a mirage,” the AHK chief said. The UK has not come out of the pandemic as strong on trade issues. There has already been some decoupling of the UK economy from global trade.
The British government has failed to consider that many European manufacturers also have offices in Great Britain. Since Brexit, however, they have no longer been able to simply send stuff and employees back and forth. “It is no longer worth maintaining this British site in the European network because even the intermediate steps such as posting of employees and customs formalities involve a lot of bureaucracy,” said Hoppe. This also has consequences for integration into world markets. However, Britain is too far away to integrate into US value chains.
