MOSCOW (MRC) -- Members of parliament in the UK voted Wednesday to approve legislation that will pass the post-Brexit trade deal into law, after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president Charles Michel signed the agreement earlier in Brussels, Belgium, as per Chemweek.
The House of Commons approved the EU (Future Relationship) Bill by a vote of 521-73 at its first stage after Parliament was recalled. The bill will now pass to the House of Lords for approval. When this is done, the Queen will be asked to sign the legislation, known as Royal Assent.
The Brexit agreement was finally reached on 24 December after months of negotiation between the UK and the EU, and is based on international law. As part of the bill, it was agreed that there will be no tariffs or quotas on the movement of goods between the UK and the EU.
Without a deal in place, the UK would have faced a 4.7% tariff on gasoline exports to the EU. The UK exports any surplus of gasoline it produces to US and west African consumers, and imports diesel, gasoil, and jet fuel from Russia, the Middle East, and the west coast of India.
The post-Brexit deal also includes provisions to support trade in services, including financial and legal services, as well as arrangements for airlines and haulers to facilitate travel to and from the EU easily, notwithstanding population movement restrictions to curb rising COVID-19 infections.
As MRC informed earlier, the UK chemical industry has given a mixed reaction to the post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement announced on 24 December by the EU and UK. The Chemical Industries Association (CIA; London, UK) says there is “some relief” that the deal confirms zero tariffs on EU-UK trade. However, a lack of clarity persists around the deal’s regulatory impact.
We remind that Russia's output of chemical products rose in September 2020 by 6.7% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased by 6.1% year on year in the first nine months of 2020, according to Rosstat's data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-September output. Last month's production of primary polymers decreased to 852,000 tonnes from 888,000 tonnes in August due to shutdowns in Tomsk, Ufa and Kazan. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 7,480,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 16.4% year on year.
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