The regional industry is one of those that have their sights set on the United Kingdom, where it sells railway equipment, pulp, zinc, fertilizers and food products. Asturian companies export so much to those lands that the United Kingdom is the eighth most important client. Far from the three main Asturian clients: France, Italy and Germany. The Principality of Asturias Foreign Promotion Society (Asturex) is still studying the scope of the agreement between the European Union and the Government of Boris Johnson to specify the impact it may have on companies in the region. However, companies are already taking accounts and the valuation is favorable. The bureaucracy will increase, but not significantly. Ence, for example, ensures that as its material travels by ship between Asturias and England, it has managed to overcome the traffic jams in the English Channel in recent weeks. “In the rest, the company works to continue exporting normally, applying the relevant administrative changes,” said Ence sources. For the paper mill with a factory in Navia, the British market is its fourth most important market. There it exports 30,000 tons of paper pulp per year.
Consuelo Busto, president of Bodegas Mayador, is pragmatic. “Before the United Kingdom was an EU country and now we have to act as if it were any third country, it will be like selling to Saudi Arabia or Puerto Rico, where we already are”, argues the businesswoman. In practice, this means that the bureaucracy will grow, a circumstance that for those companies that are more used to exporting will not entail too many headaches, but that can be a problem for those who want to expand their market and sell for those lands for the first time. time.
Another of the companies that have business in the United Kingdom, and more specifically in London, is Zitrón from Gijón, dedicated to the manufacture and sale of ventilation systems for tunnels. It has several contracts for the maintenance of some works carried out in the capital and, in addition, it aspires to obtain contracts to carry out new projects on British lands. “It has not affected us, in the end I think there will be a direct relationship, we want to export and they need to buy products from the EU”, said Antonio Fernández-Escandón, president of Zitrón.
Until October, according to the latest figures from the Institute of Foreign Trade (Icex), Asturian companies sold products worth 126 million euros in the United Kingdom, 27% less than in the same period of the previous year. In previous years the figure exceeded 200 million and in 2018 a record was reached when it reached 300. Asturian companies point out that more than “Brexit” what is curtailing their exports is the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
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