Development concerns Brexit. How is it going?

Dutch companies are not yet finished with the challenges of Brexit. This is, among others, confirmed by NBCC (Netherlands British Chamber of Commerce) and KLG Europe. KLG was live at the radio BNR yesterday morning at 07:00 o’clock.

Brexit challenges are far from over for Dutch companies.
Mainly staff shortages in the United Kingdom and time consuming customs procedures are causing delays and high costs. Anton Valk, chairman of the NBCC, says it is very important that a solution is found in the short term.

Logistics service provider KLG Europe is a Dutch company that has to deal with the challenges of Brexit on a daily basis. “Depending on the shipped goods, we see that our lead times are two to three days longer than before. Food items often take a little longer,” says Operations Manager Rob van den Brandt of KLG.

Critical shortage
New migration laws forced many drivers from Eastern Europe to leave the island, creating a dire shortage. “In recent times, supermarkets in the United Kingdom have bought out transport divisions. In this scenario they drive themselves from the port to their shop.” Van den Brandt says that shipping companies also increase the quay rent. “They want to discourage you from standing in the harbour for a long time. The stagnation is causing a scarcity of places for containers.”

He says that many other transport companies retreat from the UK market because it is no longer profitable. “That’s an advantage for us, bus sad for the industry. This does not mean that we have it easy, because we run into the same difficulties on a daily basis.”

According to van den Brandt, the uncertainty makes it financially difficult to invest properly and limit costs. “The whole Brexit has cost us several hundred thousands of euros in the first months, because we did not want to burden our customers with extra costs. Unfortunately, we can no longer avoid that.”

Listen to the radio fragment (in Dutch) here:

Source: BNR News radio (article in Dutch)