Less than 150 days until Brexit!

The impact of Brexit for companies operating in the greater Rotterdam port area is expected to be immense. The remaining time until ‘Brexit day’ on March 29 is hard needed to finetune the last and most important details in the negotiation process between the UK and the EU. Over 100 participants attended the Deltalinqs Autumn-Seminar to get up to speed and discuss the latest insights on this subject. The seminar was a co production of Deltalinqs, the Rotterdam Port Promotion Council and the Rotterdam Maritime Services Community,

The joint presentation of the representatives of the Dutch Customs and KPMG provided clear insights: “Brexit is unique, but not extraordinary – make sur to be prepared”. Companies expect their business to be impacted by Brexit. By conducting thorough impact analyses, they can prepare themselves as far as possible. Roel van ‘t Veld, Brexit-specialist at Dutch Customs, stated that because of the importance of UK related business in the Rotterdam port area, Dutch companies are better prepared than other EU countries.

The combination of visions from the public sector and the birds-eye view from the private sector was also interesting; one of the ferry companies active towards the UK, DFDS Seaways, gave a clear indication;  “without the right papers, trucks won’t be allowed to enter the terminal”. Which directly shows the importance of cooperation throughout the entire chain. DFDS stated that they are preparing in different ways. Including educating employees and making adjustments to the infrastructure at the terminal. From a producers point of view, Fred van Dijl from Sunrise Medical elaborated on the impact of the insecurity surrounding Brexit at the moment.

In a little over an hour, the attendees were brought up to date. During the wrap up the audience had the opportunity to ask questions. It was great to hear most attendees are already preparing their companies for Brexit, both at company level and as part of the Dutch logistics cluster.

Afterwards, there was more than enough time for networking – hope we can repeat this soon again.