Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan, Sindhu Bharathi and Sumathi Chakravarthy
UK has concluded a forward-looking Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union (EU)-27 post its economic transition from the European single market on 31 December 2020. It is also seeking to strike ‘zero tariff, zero quota’ trade negotiations and agreements with the USA, and potential deals with New Zealand, Australia and Canada. A Free trade agreement was also signed between UK and Japan in September 2020. These trade agreements are with a view to the future of the UK and also are significant for the Commonwealth countries, because their exports depend heavily on the UK market. In the wake of these current trade deals with the developed countries, the less developed commonwealth countries are suffering disadvantages in respect of losing out to more efficient players in the market.
Therefore this paper analyzes the impact of the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU and that of the ongoing trade negotiations with the other countries on the trade flows between the UK and Commonwealth countries. The study was performed in a GTAP multi-sector model to present an estimation of the change in trade volumes for various possible scenarios.