TradeLane

The presentation of the government’s budget before Parliament has always been an interesting affair. The perfunctory annual photo of the Chancellor of the Exchequer standing in front of Number 11 Downing Street with the red briefcase containing the Government’s budget for the year always seems to make a dull affair more interesting.

For most retailers, the focus on trade compliance is usually on store merchandise. Most overlook the fact that the compliance of visual merchandise (furniture, lighting, store décor, etc.) is just as important if they are imported from overseas and the company/brand acts as the importer-of-record to those goods.

The dynamics of trade are changing.

Perhaps this is nothing new, trade has always evolved and changed, but I think we would be hard pressed to find an instance in modern peacetime when trade has been asked to adapt so quickly. TPP, Brexit, NAFTA, and steel tariffs, which would have been the biggest stories just months ago, are now muffled background noise to the rhetoric of a Trade War between two of the world’s most important economies.