HMRC has announced that, from 8 April 2016, it will start to publish information relating to exporters of goods from the UK to non-EU countries. The purpose of this is to facilitate trade, boost UK growth and help exporters to identify new markets.
The information to be released will be limited to the exporter’s name and address, the commodity code, description of the commodity code covering the goods and the month and year of export. It will be available on HMRC’s stand-alone trade statistics website. HMRC will not publish commercially sensitive information or details of markets, customers or market share.
HMRC considers the release of this information will provide greater visibility of UK exporters to new customers in the global market place and assist developers to create exporter registers and online shop fronts to advertise and showcase UK exporters and their products.
Businesses do have the option to “opt-out” from having their details published if they wish. To opt-out, businesses should contact HMRC at [email protected]and request that information is excluded. It should be noted that you cannot opt out retrospectively and HMRC will not remove information already published.
Brief 8/16 is available to view here.
