The International Meat Trade Association (IMTA) recently launched its Brexit strategy at its first board meeting since the UK’s decision to leave the EU.
The strategy pledges that IMTA will:
- Establish the facts rule and constraints of Brexit and what it might mean for IMTA members
- Engage with government/civil service and lobby for the best outcome for IMTA members
- Identify the challenges and opportunities posed by Brexit
- Liaise and collaborate with other stakeholders (embassies, and UK and international trade associations)
- Keep members informed by monitoring the political and economic situation, as well as the lobbying positions of other organisations
- Support individual companies through their challenges
- Continue with business as usual whilst still within the EU.
The Association is also currently working on its submission to Oliver Letwin’s Parliamentary inquiry in to ‘the implications of leaving the EU for the UK’s role in the world’, which will form the basis for discussions across government.
IMTA will focus its submission on the need for imported meat, which currently provides approximately 45% of meat and meat products in the UK, as well as the continued access to export markets for UK meat.
Speaking following Theresa May’s appointment as Prime Minister, a statement from IMTA read: “Food security should be high on her agenda and we will be lobbying government to ensure that we have access to a variety of sources of supply, both domestic and imported, as well as continued access to markets for our high quality exports.
“An area that is particularly unclear for us at the moment is what schedule of tariffs will be in place for imports to the UK post-Brexit. It is reported that a number of approaches have been made to the UK government regarding potential free trade agreements including by New Zealand, Australia and South Korea. IMTA will be keen to be involved in any trade negotiations involving priority markets for the UK meat trade.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
