Saving is a mugs game

[L00b]

Unfortunately for you, that is simply untrue. Do not believe the drivel churned out by the hated EU and spoon-fed to you.

Like Cyclone asked before me, I would be interested to see the sources on which you base your view.

 

So far as I'm concerned, see for instance here (I suggest you jump to page 2, table 4). 2008 data, but still relevant. That's a UKIP source btw, which I don't think qualifies as your "drivel churned out by the hated EU and spoon-fed to you" (short of the BNP, I'm not quite sure how much more anti-EU a UK source I could find )

 

There are countless other sources, both biased (as in the link) and unbiased, which all relate the same fact: the UK trades with the EU (countries within -) first and foremost. And has done so for a very long time indeed.

 

Now then, back to the OP, and the quandary he has put me into: to buy that Porsche that's winking at me, or to keep my pennies for a rainy day?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

But % of UK trade with the EU is not the same as the % of UK exports sent via Holland to non-EU, is it.

[L00b]

But % of UK trade with the EU is not the same as the % of UK exports sent via Holland to non-EU, is it.

Again, where's your numbers?

 

I understand perfectly your point about Rotterdam/Antwerp as largest EU shipping hubs to destinations further afield, but an export order from HK, the US or CN is still outra-EU export (and counted as such, thanks to incoterms and standard export documentation submitted to the likes of HMRC and HMC&E), regardless of where/how the shipping is done.

 

I work predominantly with UK manufacturers and UK licensees of non-EU owners of UK/EU rights, in very varied sectors (steel, ICT, services, automotive, medical, oil/gas, FMCG and more). Local and non-local.

 

All of them, without exception, do most of their export business in the European 'top 7' (FR, DE, NL, ES, IT, DK, IE). With the lion's share to Germany.

 

Now, I don't claim to be an authority at all, but I would hold the sample to be very representative. Particularly since, for comparison purposes, we have an office down south, same size as us, with substantially the same client make-up, and the same conclusions about their own clients' export markets. And also since this corresponds entirely to the numbers I am familiar with, and have been for a very long time (when I was working export markets for a long-established sheffield machine tools manufacturing group 14 years ago, before I 'fell into the legals').