Economy

In votes Thursday and Friday at General Motors in the city of Ramos Arizpe in the border state of Coahuila, several thousand workers cast ballots to keep ties with the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), the union said on Sunday.Contract ratification votes are required under Mexico’s 2019 labor reform, which underpins a new trade deal with the United States and Canada, to ensure workers are not bound to contracts that were signed behind their backs, hampering them from demanding better pay.In the global propulsion systems area of the GM plant, 94% of 1,379 votes cast were in favor of the contract, as were 96% of 2,657 ballots cast in the larger assembly area, CTM said in a statement. More than 4,500 employees were eligible to vote at the 40-year-old plant, which produces Chevrolet Blazer and Chevrolet Equinox cars as well as two engine types. General Motors did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The outcome marks a stark contrast from a vote at a larger GM plant in the central Mexican city of Silao last year where several thousand workers rejected their contract with CTM, a process closely watched by the U.S. government after allegations of irregularities.In February the Silao workers elected an independent union, SINTTIA, opening the door to the prospect of bigger pay rises. More

Before Brexit, it would have been a routine job for Netty Miles, a freelance events producer, to bring a touring exhibition to Brussels. But since the UK ended free movement with Europe, life has become much more complicated for Miles and the team of three technicians needed to set up the exhibition, Sun, which features a 7-metre globe shrouded in dry ice.Initially, Miles was told her crew would need to apply for a “Professional Card” to operate in Brussels. This would have required a £250 medical exam, a £100 criminal records check and an interview at the Belgian embassy — all of which could take up to eight weeks.The £40,000 collaboration was on the cusp of being cancelled when Miles discovered that, because Sun is a co-creation between an artist and a solar scientist, the crew could use a temporary exemption that allows “artists and their assistants” to work permit-free.“It’s been incredibly stressful. At one point I thought we were going to have to cancel, but now we are going with this letter of invitation from the museum and we just hope it will be OK,” Miles said.

‘Sun’ features a 7-metre globe shrouded in dry ice © Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty

With the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and business travel to Europe resuming, trade groups warn that many thousands of small UK businesses are facing similar bureaucratic headaches when providing their services in the EU.Russell Antram, the head of EU trade at the CBI, the industry group, said the multiplicity of rules across 27 countries was “a real challenge for the largest of HR departments, let alone small businesses”. “As the virus restrictions are removed the complexity firms are facing is becoming clearer,” he said. “It is essential the UK and individual EU member states make progress in bilateral talks to ease restrictions.”William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) contained more than 1,000 restrictions on cross-border trade in services. He said there was a need for bilateral agreements with individual EU member states but also for EU-level flexibility to remove the ambiguities facing employers, staff and contractors on short-stay business travel in the EU. “Businesses can’t afford to wait until the TCA review in 2026,” Bain added.UK services trade with the EU is worth £121bn a year, of which £13.8bn is from companies with fewer than 250 employees and £9.4bn from companies with fewer than 50 employees, according to the Office for National Statistics.As part of the TCA, British citizens can travel visa-free to the EU and stay for up to 90 days in every 180-day period — but this does not necessarily include the right to work.The EU’s decision to introduce a new US-style electronic visa-waiver scheme, or ETIAS, from January 2023 is expected to make it easier for EU countries to keep tabs on visitors and catch anyone who overstays.Andy Corrigan, director of Viva La Visa, a company that specialises in music industry visa advice, said that some smaller operators, such as freelance consultants or self-employed musicians, were choosing to fly “under the radar” and work without permission, but they were taking a risk in doing so. However, the alternative for many was to stop working in the EU altogether. “We’re seeing things being cancelled because they say, ‘it’s too much grief’,” Corrigan added. Deborah Annetts, chief executive of ISM, the professional association for musicians, said invitations to work in Europe were decreasing because of the bewildering patchwork of rules across Europe. While some states such as Greece and Croatia offer no visa waiver, others like Sweden or Denmark offer time-limited exemptions depending on the importance of the artist, she said. In some EU countries, such as Belgium, rules differ even between regions. “We desperately need greater mobility for musicians and their instruments.” For Craig Hellen, the boss of Bexmedia, a four-man company in Gloucestershire that shoots videos all over Europe for major sporting teams, concerns over the paperwork and the risk of falling foul of EU law could affect the future direction of the business.“It’s changed our focus. We’re asking ourselves, ‘do we want to target EU business? Is that going to be right for us now or will it be a false economy? Should we focus more on the UK again?’” he said.For small companies more reliant on trade with the EU, such as Lincoln-based Infinity Engineering Services, which services gas turbine generators, the difficulty has been getting EU clients to understand their own obligations.Richard Lemin, Infinity’s managing director, said the company had targeted the EU to help boost turnover from £750,000 to £1mn in 2022 but was having to persuade clients to help them obtain the necessary documentation.

Richard Lemin, of Infinity Engineering Services, said: ‘The biggest risk to our future business relates to potentially losing our current EU clients’ © Cameron Smith/FT

He feared that, with permits taking up to eight weeks to obtain for jobs previously commissioned at short notice, it would become harder to compete with bigger rivals with regional EU offices from which they could service clients.“The biggest risk to our future business relates to potentially losing our current EU clients because the work permit process across the EU is not clear or within our control.” It is uncertain how zealously different countries will police the new rules and, ultimately, some smaller UK service providers may choose to operate in the “grey zone” provided by the visa-free travel. But for Netty Miles, who also works with a travelling circus and whose future business growth partly depends on access to the EU, it was better to find a way to be above board.“You hear of lots of people winging it,” she said. “But if you get caught, then it goes on your passport that you’ve breached immigration procedures. I’ve got a new 10-year passport, I just wasn’t prepared to risk that.”The Department for International Trade said that the TCA contained some of the “most ambitious provisions on trade in services ever agreed by the EU”.“Together with support from the Export Support Service, expanded export academies and a landmark export strategy, we are ensuring that businesses of all sizes have the support they need to trade effectively with Europe,” the department added.  More

Hello and welcome to the working week,It has been a gloriously balmy few days in London. You have to hold on to such things in these troubled times. Sadly, like the global news agenda, the UK forecast is for more clouds on the way. I’m afraid to say that in the coming seven days, the bleak still has the upper hand over the bright.Brussels will again be the venue for debate on the Ukraine invasion, firstly with a meeting of EU interior ministers on Monday to discuss the resulting refugee crisis and then on Thursday when Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg presents the military alliance’s annual report.It is one of those quirks of British life — explained so well in this piece from the FT archive — that the UK’s personal tax year will start on April 6, so more on that next weekend. This Friday, however, marks the date for corporate and government financial statements. This will have extra significance this year because it will lay bare the roots of current inflationary pressures. It will also be the day when the significantly higher energy price cap comes into force. Perhaps it is better to reflect on significant figures of our recent past, who have passed away. It is a busy week for that with a remembrance service for Prince Philip in London — a day before the 20th anniversary of the Queen Mother’s death — and a memorial to legendary cricketer Shane Warne in Melbourne.Reasons to be cheerful? European bison will be returning to British soil, where they were previously hunted to extinction, with a project to rewild parts of Kent, where it is hoped the animals will help local woodlands to flourish. And before you ask, no, this will not be an April Fool’s Day joke.Something else that has been returning after a period of extinction in the UK is railway nationalisation. The latest example is ScotRail, which will be returned to public ownership on Friday after the Holyrood government cancelled the franchise with Abellio amid criticism of its performance. It also revives the debate about whether direct control is a better solution than Westminster’s decision to create a mixed economy system under Great British Railways, a state-owned body akin to Transport for London that will contract out national train service routes.Do please get in touch — you can email me at [email protected] dataNot satisfied with the quantity of inflation news so far? Well, you are in luck because we have a week of consumer price index and producer price index reports from European nations. We’ll also get GDP estimates from the US, the UK and Canada, plus international comparisons of business confidence with the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index data on Friday.CompaniesEarnings season is nearly at an end — ready for the start of the next quarter — but this week will bring an earnings announcement from Covid-19 vaccine poster child BioNTech. The resurgence of cases in the UK and other countries has led to calls for fourth doses among some more vulnerable groups, showing that vaccine demand is unlikely to dip any time soon. BioNTech is among a group of companies expected to publish late-stage trial results on Omicron-targeted shots imminently.New Burberry chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd, poached from Milan-based Versace, is due to take the reins of the British fashion house on Friday at a big moment for the company. Former chief executive Marco Gobbetti had introduced a strategy to move the brand upmarket, and had achieved some success but sales were undermined by pandemic restrictions on travel, which prevented Burberry’s key Chinese customers coming to Europe to buy new outfits.Key economic and company reportsHere is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.MondayUK, household disposable income and inequality data plus the Treasury committee is to question chancellor Rishi Sunak and the Office for Budget Responsibility on last week’s Spring Statement. Also, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey in conversation with Guntram Wolff, director of Bruegel, on ‘macroeconomic and financial stability in changing times’TuesdayFrance, Germany, US: consumer confidence dataJapan, February unemployment figuresUK, February money and consumer credit dataUS, February house price index reportResults: Bank of China FY, Bellway H1, Boku FY, Ten Entertainment FYWednesdayEU, March economic sentiment and business climate indicator dataGermany, March consumer price index (CPI) figuresItaly, February producer price index (PPI) figuresJapan, February retail sales figuresSpain, inflation dataUK, Bank of England deputy governor Ben Broadbent’s speech about the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, hosted by the NIESR think-tank, plus Office for National Statistics report on impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great BritainUS, ADP employment report plus Q4 GDP estimateResults: BioNTech Q4ThursdayCanada, January GDP figuresEU, February unemployment rateFrance, February PPI figures and provisional March CPI dataGermany, Italy: March labour market figuresGermany, February retail trade figuresItaly, preliminary CPI dataJapan, February industrial production figuresUK, revised Q4 GDP figure, Q4 consumer trends report plus British Retail Consortium’s monthly economic briefingResults: H&M Group Q1, Walgreens Boots Alliance Q2FridayChina, EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK: final manufacturing purchasing managers’ index dataEU, flash March inflation figureJapan, Q1 Tankan business sentiment surveyUK, Nationwide house price surveyUS, March unemployment statisticsWorld eventsFinally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week. MondayEU, an extraordinary meeting of EU interior ministers to discuss the handling of Ukrainian and Moldovan refugees into member statesUK, Most of Wales’s last few remaining Covid-19 restrictions due to be scrappedUS, president Joe Biden hosts a special summit with ASEAN leadersMonthly meeting of the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement bodyTuesdayUK, a service of thanksgiving will be held for the Duke of Edinburgh in Westminster Abbey, LondonWednesdayAustralia, state memorial service to honour cricketer Shane Warne, who died of a suspected heart attack in early March, at Melbourne Cricket GroundUK, 20 years since the death of the Queen MotherLand Day in the Palestinian territories, commemorating the shooting of six protesters by Israeli security forces in 1976 and symbolising resistance to unresolved claims to property restitution in the West Bank and Gaza StripThursdayBelgium, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg presents the military alliance’s annual report in BrusselsQatar, 2022 Fifa Congress will be held in Doha, where the final draw will be made for the World Cup in the country this yearUK, latest deadline for the Transport for London and the Westminster government to agree conditions of a long-term funding dealUK, deadline for abortion services to become available in Northern IrelandUK, a wild herd of European bison, the continent’s largest land mammal, will begin to be introduced to UK woodland to restore an ancient habitatFridayApril Fools’ DayEU-China summit takes place virtually between Brussels and BeijingIran, Republic Day celebrates the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolutionUK, various changes affecting the cost of living and earnings. Energy bill price rises come into effect with the energy price cap rising to about £1,660, but homeowners in England and Wales will be offered subsidies of £5,000 towards replacing old gas boilers with low-carbon heat pumps. The temporary reduction in VAT from 20 to 5 per cent for the tourism hospitality industry ends, plus free lateral flow and PCR tests will end in England. The National Minimum Wage will increase from £8.91 to £9.50 per hour, while MPs in Westminster get a 2.7 per cent pay rise, taking their annual salary to £84,144. The annual BBC licence fee will be frozen at £159 for 2022 and 2023UK, plastic packaging tax comes into force. Manufacturers and importers whose products contain less than 30 per cent recyclable material will be charged £200 per tonneUK, Scotland’s train operator ScotRail, currently run by Dutch company Abellio, will be nationalised and run by a public sector bodySaturdayHindu new yearArgentina, Malvinas Day, marking the country’s occupation of the Falkland Islands in 1982Muslim month of Ramadan beginsSundayAustralia, Daylight Saving Time endsCosta Rica, second round of the general electionFrance, Paris marathonHungary, parliamentary electionsSerbia, general electionUK, Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race takes place on the river Thames More

Auchan, which has around 30,000 staff, 231 stores and e-commerce activities in Russia, has already been criticised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for remaining operational in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.In the interview published on Sunday, Auchan’s chief executive Yves Claude said he feared the company risked losing assets or exposing local managers to potential legal troubles if it pulled out of Russia. The firm would also remain in Ukraine, Claude said, where its 43 supermarkets and around 6,000 staff, including in regions hit by the war, were operating under “extreme conditions”.”The most important in our eyes is to maintain our employees and ensure our primary mission, which is to continue feeding the populations of these two countries,” Claude said.Responding to the report, Ukraine’s foreign minister called for a boycott of Auchan and all of its products.”Apparently, job losses in Russia are more important than the loss of life in Ukraine,” Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).Ukrainian President Zelenskiy has said it was necessary that all Western companies leave the Russian market and do not cover their “thirst for profit” through “cheap” communication, explicitly citing Auchan and Swiss food giant Nestle.The company generated 3.2 billion euros in sales in Russia last year, around 10% of its global sales, and expects losses this year in that market.Moscow says the goals for what Putin calls a “special military operation” include demilitarising and “denazifying” its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies calls this a pretext for an unprovoked invasion. More

One wet evening recently, a sort of Fleet Street pilgrimage took place when a group of Financial Times journalists made their way to a nondescript warehouse in Bow, a place the taxi driver couldn’t find between Stratford and the Thames. The team, who spend their days compiling the FT’s ‘pink ‘un’ print edition on digital screens, were there to witness copies rolling off the FT’s St Clements printworks for one of the last times before it closed its doors for the final time on Friday night. After a decade under the FT’s ownership, the site is being decommissioned and the machinery is being shipped as spare parts to other still-surviving printworks. Like the rest of the FT’s print sites around the world, its UK copies will now be produced in contracted slots at another site.

An hour earlier print newspaper editors sat at the FT newsdesk in Bracken House, in the City of London, finessing the splash headline before releasing the front page to the presses. Now, the same text was emerging as a metal sheet, ready to be attached to the presses in order to churn out thousands of copies. Although most of the team have worked at the FT for years, none had visited the print site before.

The FT began printing on pink paper in 1893 as a way to differentiate itself from its rivals the Financial News and to save money from not bleaching paper white, a tradition that has endured. At one time, the FT’s printing presses rumbled under the newsroom at Bracken House opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. And although most FT content is now read on mobile phones and laptops, the printed version has a permanence, a loyal following and a place at the heart of the FT Group.

As the presses started to whirr, drying copies of the FT began their choreographed dance across the vast warehouse space carried on long tracks up and down, around and around the vast room. It was a mesmerising and emotional moment as the papers hurtled out of the machine, seemingly in a rush to get to the readers.Although the production of news in 2022 is digital, fast-paced and ever-changing, there remains something magical about seeing carefully reported and edited stories and photographs being committed to paper.

Skilled technicians monitored the output and made adjustments to achieve the perfect registration, 2km long reels of Swedish paper were heaved into position and began to turn and, as a cacophony erupted, the machine started spitting out copies. In less time than it would take to flick through its pages, the next day’s FT was packaged on to crates and rushed out on trolleys to waiting vans before landing on newsagents’ shelves and doorsteps the following morning. More

Will Opec boost oil output to counter Russia supply disruptions? In the oil market this week all eyes will be on Opec’s next ministerial meeting on Thursday, after G7 leaders called on the producer group, led by Saudi Arabia, to boost output to compensate for the disruption generated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The US has been pressuring Saudi Arabia and other Opec members to increase output since September, but the G7 statement ups the ante. Members of the Opec+ alliance, which includes Russia, have so far stuck to a plan agreed last year to only gradually replace production cut at the start of the pandemic.But with analysts forecasting that a growing international boycott will force Russia’s production to fall by as much as 3mn b/d from April, the Opec case for business as usual is weakening. If Opec members accept that Russian production is likely to fall significantly “there are few advantages and multiple disadvantages, in staying within the current Opec+ agreement”, analysts at Standard Chartered wrote in a note.Whether Opec is able to substantially increase output is another matter. The group has consistently failed to hit its current monthly increase target of 400,000 barrels per day and Opec spare capacity is now estimated to have fallen to between 2mn and 3mn b/d, concentrated in Saudi Arabia and UAE. Top oil traders at the Financial Times Commodity Summit in Lausanne last week, including Doug King, head of RCMA’s Merchant Commodity Fund, argued that even those low spare capacity figures were overstated and that Saudi Arabia was sticking to the Opec+ agreement because it does not have any more barrels to offer. King predicted that Brent crude, which was trading at around $116 a barrel on Friday, would soar to between $200 and $250 a barrel this year. Tom WilsonWill the US economy record a third month of powerful jobs growth?Employment in the US is expected to have grown again in March, the third month of big gains, albeit at a slower pace than in FebruaryThe closely watched labour department report on Friday is forecast to show that 488,000 jobs were added in March, compared with 678,000 in February, and that the unemployment rate fell again, to 3.7 per cent from 3.8 per cent, according to a Bloomberg poll of economists. US jobs reports have dramatically exceeded expectations in recent months: February’s print was expected to show 400,000 jobs were added. January also recorded a surprise jump in jobs added — as well as upwards revisions to the data from November and December — despite the rise in Omicron cases. The report will be the first since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at its March policy meeting after slashing them to near zero at the beginning of the pandemic. At the meeting, the Fed’s forecasting mechanism known as the ‘dot plot’ also showed that officials on average expect to raise interest rates at each of the subsequent meetings this year. A weak report could raise questions about the capacity for the US economy to withstand the slowdown that typically accompanies rate increases, while a stronger report could point to continued inflationary pressures in the labour market. Kate DuguidWill eurozone inflation reach a new record high?Eurozone inflation is expected to have surged further in March from its all-time high of 5.9 per cent reached in the previous month.Economists polled by Reuters forecast consumer prices growth to have accelerated to 6.5 per cent when the flash estimate is released on Friday. Core inflation, which excludes the more volatile food and energy prices, is expected to jump to 3.3 per cent from 2.9 per cent in the previous month.This means that headline inflation would be running at more than three times the 2 per cent target of the European Central Bank, with surging energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pointing to a further acceleration in the months ahead.Higher inflation is largely expected to materialise through more expensive energy costs, but other factors are also forecast to play a role. Following the war, prices of agricultural commodities and fertilisers, of which both Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers, have also increased substantially. “Based on past evidence, we estimate this will considerably increase food inflation in the eurozone around six months from now,” said Paul Hollingsworth, economist at BNP Paribas.As a result, Hollingsworth now expects headline inflation to peak at 7.4 per cent on average in the second quarter, pushing the annual rate to 6.7 per cent. The latter is up from a forecast of 5 per cent before the war.Economists are closely monitoring signs of wage inflation spiral, where rising workers’ compensation feeds into more persistent domestic price pressure. Hollingsworth said there has been “little evidence” so far of stronger wage growth, but he added that “it is only a matter of time.” Valentina Romei More

Expectations are rising that the US Federal Reserve will make jumbo, half-point interest rate increases this year, as central bank officials signal that they may soon need to step up efforts to reduce the highest inflation in 40 years. Wall Street economists moved en masse this week to revise their 2022 forecasts for monetary policy, projecting the Fed will double the pace at which it is raising rates at one or more of its forthcoming meetings. The central bank delivered its first increase since 2018 this month, lifting the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a new target range of 0.25 per cent to 0.50 per cent. The economists took their cue from some of the most senior policymakers on the Federal Open Market Committee, who this week were explicit about the central bank’s willingness to take aggressive action given price pressures. “The signalling clearly has been very much on the hawkish side for some time, but that has gotten to a feverish pitch in recent days,” said Simona Mocuta, chief economist at State Street Global Advisors.Jay Powell, Fed chair, kicked off a busy week for the bank’s officials on Monday when he embraced the Fed moving “expeditiously” to raise rates to a “neutral” level that ceases to further ignite demand. He also quipped that there was “nothing” preventing it from moving forward with a half-point increase in May.John Williams, president of the New York Fed and a member of Powell’s inner circle, on Friday capped the week off by saying the Fed should proceed with such a move if warranted by the data. It marked a departure from his earlier stance that there was not a compelling argument for a “big step” at the March meeting. Several other branch presidents, including Charles Evans of Chicago, Mary Daly of San Francisco and Atlanta’s Raphael Bostic also expressed their openness to doing so.Loretta Mester, president of the Cleveland Fed, joined more hawkish members such as James Bullard of St Louis and Christopher Waller, a Fed governor, in advocating for “front-loaded” interest rate increases to get to neutral settings or beyond in short order. She is targeting rates at 2.5 per cent by the end of 2022.“They are trying to remove the ambiguity,” said Tom Porcelli, chief US economist at RBC Capital Markets, of the Fed’s communication. He said a half percentage point increase at the next meeting is a “done deal”, with at least one more likely after that.Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Jefferies now expect the Fed to deliver back-to-back half-point increases from May, followed by quarter-point adjustments at each of the four remaining meetings after the June gathering. That will accompany a reduction in the $9tn balance sheet, a process that could begin in May.Citigroup on Friday announced one of the most aggressive forecasts, projecting the Fed would deliver half-point increases at its next four meetings. It would then moderate to a more typical quarter-point tempo for the remaining two gatherings of the year, so that the top end of the target fed funds range reaches 3 per cent. In 2023, Citi expects it to rise to 3.75 per cent.“Once you go 50 basis points, it increases the probability that you go 50 again,” said Andrew Hollenhorst, its chief US economist. “You don’t want to be seen as being less active if it doesn’t look better on the inflationary front.”

Shifting expectations have unsettled US governments bond markets, sending yields surging across all maturities. The benchmark 10-year note traded as high as 2.5 per cent, nearly a full percentage point above its January level. The two-year yield rocketed up to 2.23 per cent at one point, having started 2022 at about 0.8 per cent.Mounting support for the Fed to “think bigger” — as Bullard, who dissented on March’s quarter-point move, urged his colleagues to do this week — reflects a recognition that inflationary pressures are becoming more prevalent and deeply embedded in the economy. “If the Fed is too slow to hit the [neutral] milestone, it may put itself in a position where it needs to tighten that much faster later this year or earlier next year and cause a dramatic slowdown in economic activity,” said Blerina Uruci, chief US economist at T Rowe Price. More

Britain should not allow the Australia-UK free trade agreement to be held “hostage” by the country’s farming sector and should focus on ratifying the deal this year, a leading trade group has warned.The Australian British Chamber of Commerce published a report this week that said the UK’s first post-Brexit trade deal would remove more than A$9bn (£5bn) of tariffs and boost access to workers and capital between both countries.But British farmers have objected that Australia could flood the UK market with cheap beef and lamb and damage the livelihoods of livestock producers. “The danger we face is that agriculture, which is an important but small part of the free trade agreement, holds other parts of the agreement hostage. There is a much broader horizon,” David McCredie, the organisation’s chief executive, told the Financial Times.“It’s important for the [UK] government, having trumpeted that this is the first post-Brexit trade deal, to live up to the high benchmark they’ve set,” he added.The free trade deal, which was agreed in principle last year, should be ratified in the final three months of this year, but could drag into 2023 if held up in the British parliament, he added.The wide-ranging agreement will cut tariffs on everything from whisky to electric vehicles made in Sunderland being exported to Australia. Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, posed with a packet of Australian Tim Tam chocolate biscuits last year to highlight the benefits for UK consumers.McCredie said there was a risk that the deal, which could stimulate a post-pandemic economic recovery for both countries, might be weighed down by overly pessimistic views of its impact on the British industry. “Every day we wait means more tariffs,” he added. The UK is Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner for goods, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The agreement could create opportunities for companies that have been hit by Chinese tariffs as part of rising geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Canberra. Agricultural trade has remained very low between the UK and Australia since Britain joined the EU because of high tariffs and trade barriers. The Australian government has argued that it is unlikely to return to pre-EU membership levels because of the strength of its Asian trade relationships. Most of the benefit will be for large service industries in the UK and Australia, with migration and capital investment opened up.“It is not just window dressing, it has real teeth,” said McCredie.The Australian British Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of 25,000 businesses active in both countries. The UK’s Department for International Trade declined to comment. More