Brexit: British Chemicals Industry Opposes Separate British Compliance Regulations

Seven of ten companies surveyed fear that separate British compliance regulations will have negative effects on their trade relations with the European Union. That’s the finding of a survey of the British Alliance of Chemical Associations (ACA), the results of which were provided only to the news platform ChemicalWatch.

The ACA is a group of 11 trade bodies and represents the interests of more than 1,000 predominately small and midsize enterprises in the chemicals and affiliated industries. Two-thirds of the firms are headquartered in Great Britain.

More than 100 firms participated in the survey. Three-quarters of them see Brexit as a risk and also consider REACH and CLP as important to their operational business. More than half of the companies regard a free-trade agreement with the EU as less helpful, and every fifth company would even consider moving their business out of Great Britain.

For most of the small and midsize companies, high levels of investment in regulatory services are a significant burden. They indicate that they invest about 15% of their profit in compliance measures. Some 62% of respondents believe that separate British regulations would increase that figure.

A survey of managers conducted by the British Coatings Federation (BCF) found similar statements. The BCF has summarized the results of the survey in a closing report. In this survey as well, three-fourths of companies spoke against separate British regulations. And the attitudes toward REACH are even clearer. Nine of ten companies regard REACH as having the highest relevance possible. And 82% of the companies regard CLP the same way.

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