Article published in September 2022.

It has been well over a year since eight Freeports in England were announced by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, during his delivery of the March 2021 Budget. The successful locations were: East Midlands, Freeport East (Felixstowe and Harwich), Humber, Liverpool City Region, Plymouth and South Devon, Solent, Teesside, and Thames.

This was the result of a four-month bidding process in which prospective bidders were required to demonstrate how their ambitions conformed to the government’s policy objectives and matched their decision criteria. The Freeports Bidding Prospectus refers to three core objectives: (i) establish Freeports as national hubs for global trade and investment, (ii) promote regeneration and job creations, and (iii) create hotbeds for innovation. Meanwhile, the English Freeports selection decision-making note documents how prospective bidders performed against the following decision criteria: A) Trade and Investment, B) Regeneration, C) Innovation, D) Deliverability of Proposals at Pace, and E) Private Sector Involvement.

With Freeports now operational, we find that there are certain technicalities that have been somewhat overlooked. We consider how output manufactured or processed in the UK’s Freeports may be treated when exported to third markets, and in particular to countries with which the UK enjoys a preferential arrangement in the form of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The originating status of goods produced in free ports may be affected by rules going beyond direct provisions in FTAs. The origin of a good produced in a free port may be affected by the customs legislation of a trading partner.

UKTPO Briefing Paper 69, published in September 2022. Co-authored with Peter Holmes and Guillermo Larbalestier. Read the full paper here.