TTIP - The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

A guest article by Carousel Logistics

TTIP or The Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership, is a trade and investment agreement, which the European Union (EU) is negotiating with the United States - the UK's biggest export market.

The European Commission is at the second stage of the negotiating process representing all 28 EU member countries and a decision is likely to be reported in the first half of 2016. The European Commission has stated that TTIP would boost the EU's economy by €120 billion, the US economy by €90 billion and the rest of the world's economy by €100 billion.

Customs duties, red tape and restrictions on investment on each side of the Atlantic can make it difficult to buy and sell goods and services. Getting rid of these trade barriers between the EU and the US would potentially boost the economy, create jobs, widen choice and lower prices for consumers.

From a supply chain perspective, this agreement would make it easier for EU firms (large and small) to export goods and services to the US. Companies can often find it difficult to collect all the necessary information on regulatory requirements for their products and TTIP would address common issues such as intermittent double inspection of EU imports into the US, compliance certificates for US customs procedures that can take months to obtain, and complications that arise from different Rules of Origin for manufacturing, as well as tariff classifications for exported goods.

This has been supported in the Wall Street Journal which claimed that the TTIP would strengthen US and EU global competitiveness by reducing trade barriers, by improving intellectual property protections, and by establishing new international "rules of the road".

The reach of TTIP goes much further than Customs and Excise alterations, it will also address topics such as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), Intellectual Property, Food Safety Standards, Regulatory Co-operation, Public Services and Transparency.

However, there are some criticisms of this proposed partnership. Such as establishing what the impact of opening up Europe's public health market to the US would be. There are also concerns about food safety as US regulations are less strict than EU regulations especially concerning GM ingredients. Other issues include banking regulations (loosening of US banking regulations and handing more power back to bankers), privacy (TTIP could bring back ACTA's central elements), jobs (which could switch to US) and democracy (companies may be able to sue governments should a policy cause a loss of profit).

As you can imagine the on-going developments of the negotiations are very broad and will have far reaching consequences for everyone who trades internationally but whatever the outcome Carousel Logistics will be here to help you put together a personalised logistics system that meets your requirements.

Tim Deniz, Head of Client Operations, Carousel Logistics

Carousel Logistics provides personalised logistics for organisations that absolutely put their clients first.  Their logistics services include:

  • Personalised Logistics Solutions
  • Out of Hours Deliveries
  • Reverse Logistics
  • Time Specified Logistics
  • Consolidation
  • Warehouse Solutions