Brussels (Brussels Morning) The Irish government notes that freight volumes between Ireland and EU ports doubled in January, Reuters reports.
Because of the bureaucratic obstacles and delays now being experienced, many traders are avoiding routing good through Britain, which, pre-Brexit, was the speedier and most efficient transportation route for export trade between mainland Europe and Ireland. Now traders are looking to direct routes linking Irish and French ports.
The Irish government notes that trade volumes on routes between Ireland and Britain dropped some 50% in January. This includes direct trade between the two countries.
Irish authorities cited various contributing factors including pandemic-control measures, pre-Brexit stockpiling and new bureaucratic obstacles.
New system causes problems
According to government records, weekly trade volume grew 11% in the final week of last month. “While many are successfully continuing to trade with Britain, some businesses, large and small, are having difficulty, in some cases severe difficulty, adapting to the new system of controls,” the government declared.
UK traffic to and from the port of Rosslare in the southeast of Ireland dropped 49% in January, according to government records. The port is the launch point for most of the new direct routes to mainland Europe, with freight to and from the EU increasing 446% annually in January.
Trucks need 43 documents on average to gain entry from Britain, which is why many are opting for longer routes with shorter red tape requirements.
Some 17,500 trucks arrived from Britain to Ireland in January, an average of 45 trucks per ferry, according to the Irish government. This is significantly below the ferry of 200 trucks per vessel.
Once France started demanding negative coronavirus tests from truckers arriving on ferries from Ireland, Irish authorities last week set up two centres for free rapid testing of truck drivers.