Brexit watch

I'm not sure if New Zealand ( other side of world and tiny) is going to replace the world's biggest free trade area. But hey, they're not foreigners are they?

I'm sure Boris will invent lots more myths about the EU in his new job.

New Zealand has a trade surplus. Its economy is in quite good shape. Its biggest trade partners are China, Australia, South Korea and the US. Why would it would want to trade with the UK?

Commonwealth connections?

If I was New Zealand I wouldn't rush. When we joined the EU we turned our backs on them and nearly bankrupted them.

NZ's biggest exports are meat and dairy products. They import cars, etc. from South Korea. NZ still exports meat and dairy to the UK (and the rest of the EU) and apples, which is useful when they're out of season in the northern hemisphere, but they're not going to start importing cars from the UK, when Japan and South Korea are so much nearer. China is by far NZ's biggest market.

In any case, approximately 80% of the UK's trade is in services and I don't suppose financial traders care where they do business as long as they're making money.

43.3% of the turnout voted in the referendum to replace the existing flag with a Union Jack with another flag, so there's a substantial minority who don't seem to care one way or the other about the Commonwealth.

@ww

Forty years ago China wasn't the superpower it's now become. The world has changed in that time.

The UK is New Zealand’s fifth largest two-way trading partner. It is the fifth largest market for total exports from New Zealand and the ninth largest source market. Imports of goods and services from the UK were worth over £1.1 billion in 2014.
New Zealand’s top 5 imports from the UK are:
^vehicles
machinery and mechanical parts
electrical machinery and goods
pharmaceutical products
print products, such as books^

Not huge, but then NZ itself does not have a huge population.

So if that's the case, what was all the stuff about us being stopped from trading with other countries by the EU?

Was that one of the claims?
Must have missed that one

NZ must trade with the EU too as we find lots of NZ lamb in the supermarkets here.

I'm not sure where you found that information, Jalima, but it's not quite consistent with this information:

atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nzl/

The UK accounts for 3.3% of NZ's exports and 2.7% of its imports.

China accounts for 20% of NZ's exports and 17% of its imports.

It does. NZ exports 1.2% of its total exports to France and 1.9% to Germany.

The IMF forecast that by 2019 the commonwealth will have overtaken the EUs contributing 17.7% of the worlds output compared with the EUs 15.3%.
Quoted from the DT.
It's all gloom&doom, ( for Europe)

Does that include India?

When the Uk joined the EU, New Zealand wasn't producing anything at all apart from lamb and butter. No wonder they felt let down but it was their own fault. A friend of ours married a man from New Zealand in 1974 and took a washing machine and a fridge by boat when she emmigrated. She wrote that in the whole of Aukland there were only 4 patterns of curtaining to choose from.
For them it must have been a wake up call and no reason why they shouldn't trade with the Uk now.
Any way I really can't understand how trading with NZ can be better than the with the EU with its marvellous mixture of different things - so much to choose from at decent prices, good food and variety.
Before the EU days Brits didn't put olive oil on tomatoes, now we know better.

It was from a Government website dd designed to help exporters

www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-new-zealand/exporting-to-new-zealand

www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-australia/exporting-to-australia

www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-canada/doing-business-in-canada-canada-trade-and-export-guide

It is all a complete mystery to me still, and it doesn't look like getting any better - however I see that Brits living in an EU country should be protected by a protocol in the ECHR - all countries signed this protocol (7 I think) except UK. In effect it means UK citizens can remain in another EU country if they are living there now but nobody is guaranteed the same right in UK.

Thanks, Jalima. The stats don't seem to agree. In any case, the Commonwealth countries with growing economies are India and Canada. The UK doesn't really get much of a look in. After 8 years, Canada has just signed an agreement with the EU, which will now exclude the UK. Canada also has agreements with the US for obvious reasons. There really isn't much of an incentive to negotiate a separate agreement with the UK. The only exports we're likely to increase to India are arms. The UK is more likely to become a dumping ground for India's exports.

Anyway, Boris, David Davis and Liam Fox are going to sort it all out! Theresa really is no fool.

daphnedill No, that doesn't include India.
MargaretX Are you seriously saying that we will have to choose between trading with the eu and trading with NZ.
And I think you'll find that things have moved on since 1974. And I did put love oil on tomatoes before we joined the eu, my ex husband was half Italian.

OK, but it doesn't matter how much the Commonwealth economy grows, if the UK has nothing to export to the Commonwealth. The two countries most important to the UK are the US and China. The only Commonwealth countries likely to be important are Canada (which has just concluded a deal with the EU) and Australia. NZ and the other Commonwealth countries are nowhere on the list (and that's according to David Davis).

There's nothing to stop the UK trading with NZ, but it's hardly worth the effort.

The decider is going to be whether the EU allows the UK financial services industry to trade in the EU. The City of London produces 22% of the UK's exports and without that, we really will be in trouble.

NZ is a very small country with a population similar to Wales. We are not going to build a trading empire on that.
Australians don't like us very much folks. Nationally they aspire to get one (or ten) over on the Poms.
They are both a long way away and the cost of shipping is high.

Depressing little article on the economic effects of Brexit :
www.huffingtonpost.com/will-hutton/theresa-may-brexit_b_10943550.html

There's nothing to stop the UK trading with NZ, but it's hardly worth the effort.
Well, every little helps as they say.
I wasn't imagining for a minute that it was going to be the sole importer of our goods and our saviour, I only put a link on to be helpful; it wasn't me who mentioned NZ in the first place.

Australians don't like us very much folks
Really? Not our experience, but then we are not exporting anything except our expertise. Anyway, should we be surprised, the way we abandoned them in favour of our new friends who we are now abandoning?
Fickle or what?