Spanish toy exports to UK plummet due to Brexit vote
Tuesday, March 28, 2017 @ 1:09 PM
TOY exports from Spain to the UK have shrunk in the last nine months due to the uncertainty surrounding the impending Brexit process and the fall of the pound sterling against the euro.
The Spanish Toy Manufacturers' Association (AEFJ) says it had been seeing growth of nearly 18% per annum until the EU referendum led to a 'leave' result, and that 2016 had been its worst year of the decade for UK trade.
This does not mean the industry is struggling per se, however, says the AEFJ – already very international, Britain was its fourth-largest market and has now dropped to fifth behind Germany.
But purchases from the United Kingdom have definitely dropped, the AEFJ says, coinciding with the devaluing of the sterling on the very day the referendum results were known, on June 23.
Back in 2013, toy manufacturers in Spain – mostly based in the south-west of the province of Alicante, in towns such as Biar and Tibi, where the industry is overwhelmingly the mainstay of the local economy – sold just under €424 million of their wares abroad, or 7.1% more than in 2012, and thought at the time that it was their poorest year since the financial crisis.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com