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The next big opportunity: UK Freeports and Customs Innovation

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Two initiatives are making international trade easier and cheaper: Freeports and the Electronic Trade Documents Act. Want to learn more?

What you’ll learn

  • UK Freeports as a stepping stone for international expansion and customs innovation
  • The big opportunity in Trade Digitalisation and its developments
  • Why the Electronic Trade Document Act can be a gamechanger for businesses?

Description

Explore how you can benefit from the comprehensive package of measures Freeports have to offer and how your business can maximise the benefits of electronic trade documentation.

What are Freeports?

Freeports are special areas near shipping ports or airports within the UK’s borders where taxes and tariffs from importing goods do not apply. Freeports aim to generate economic activity such as new investment opportunities, drive growth, and support trade, innovation, and commerce across the UK. Currently, there are eight active Freeports in the UK.

What is the Electronic Trade Documents Act?

The new Electronic Trade Documents Act is making trading cheaper and easier for British businesses by adopting an increasingly flexible and modern approach to trade documents. Electronic trade documentation can deliver significant cost savings to your business, reduce transaction processing time, and mitigate the risk of human error and fraud.

Speakers

Chris Chatfield

Specialist in Marine Insurance, Kennedys Law

Chris is a London based partner who specialises in marine insurance. He qualified in 1997.

Chris handles goods in transit work, policy disputes, insurance litigation and the drafting of commercial contracts. His goods in transit work includes both recoveries and liability work. He also specialises in warehouse claims, defending and pursuing claims in relation to damage and loss to cargo arising from theft, floods, fires and other such causes. Chris’s work regarding carriage of goods includes both claims and liability matters involving domestic and international carriage by road, rail, sea and air.

Nick Davies

Director, C4DTI

After a 30-year-plus career in HMRC, latterly as an Innovation Lead looking at the application of new and emerging technology in tax administration, Nick was recently appointed as the Director of the ICC Centre for Digital Trade & Innovation. A firm believer in the power of tech to transform the way we do trade and ensure it is a driver of sustainability, he is keen to enable collaboration across all business types, sectors and countries to put the U.K. at the forefront of developing new digital capabilities in international trade.

Ibrahim Mohamed

Strategic Director, Department for Business and Trade

Ibrahim Mohamed is Strategic Director at the Department for Business and Trade and Associate Director of Freeports at Connected Places Catapult. Since 2017, Ibrahim has served as an adviser at the Department for Business and Trade, with vast experience in leading the development of International Trade, supporting the development of foreign government infrastructure programmes and working across Whitehall in the support of HMG trade initiatives and government to government trade programmes. Ibrahim is also an experienced Freeport practitioner supporting the establishment of Freeports in the UK.

Kevin Shakespeare

Director Professional Practices, Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade

Kevin has over 40 years’ experience in international trade, career highlights include facilitating cross-border trade for many UK businesses, designing, and delivering new processes pre-and post-EU exit and developing the diploma in world customs. He is a UN-approved trainer and author of a best-selling book, Trade for Good.

Philly Strahan

Freeport Innovation Network Manager, Connected Places Catapult

Philly is the Freeport Innovation Network Manager at Connected Places Catapult. The Freeport Innovation Network (FIN) is a centralised bespoke environment that empowers UK Freeports to drive their innovation programmes, leading to commercialisation, helping create new products & services to support the long-term objective of economic self-sufficiency.

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