For now, the work of Britain's new Department for International Trade will likely be largely focused on diplomacy and, crucially, amassing a team of experts after decades of relying on the EU to negotiate its trade deals. Deals, involving detail on thousands of goods, take years to agree and Britain will want to pursue several simultaneously. "We are going to be very short of capacity," said Alan Winters, director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex in southern England. Keen to secure its first post-Brexit trade deal, Britain will be negotiating from a position of relative weakness, say trade experts. One of its biggest challenges will be incorporating substantial agreement on services -- around 80 percent of Britain's economy -- as trade deals tend to be more focused on goods.

Source: bd News24 September 07, 2016 11:37 UTC