Aston University Business School revealed that many smaller UK businesses have stopped exporting little to the EU due to increased restrictions and regulations.

In comparison to what it anticipates would have happened in the absence of Brexit, the analysis revealed that UK goods exports to the EU decreased by 27% and imports increased by 32% between 2021 and 2023.

The service industry, which has fared better than many analysts had anticipated following Brexit, is not included in the study.

The survey discovered that there are 1,645 fewer varieties of British commodities shipped to every EU nation, indicating a decline in the diversity of trade export items.

According to the authors, this is because smaller British companies have given up on exporting single consignments to some EU countries due to rising bureaucracy.

Among the hardest-hit industries are farmers, apparel manufacturers, and producers of wood and paper, with several subsectors seeing a decline in EU export value of more than half

Nuts and edible fruit saw the largest decline in export value—a whopping 73.5%.

Trade inside the EU has been most impacted by trade with smaller, farther-flung nations, and least by trade with bigger, closer nations.

The authors do point out that a few industries have shown resilience, particularly when it comes to exports to larger EU nations like Germany and France.

The diversity of exports to EU countries increased in the railway, aircraft, and tobacco industries.

(Sources: bbc.co.uk)