Foreign Affairs

Netherlands Says Almost 100 Companies Have Flocked To Its Country To Prepare For Brexit

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Almost 100 companies have left the United Kingdom and relocated to the Netherlands due to the economic implications of Brexit, a Dutch government agency reported Monday.

As many as 325 other companies are also considering moving out of the UK out of fear of loosing access to the European market, according to the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, Reuters reports.

“The ongoing growing uncertainty in the United Kingdom, and the increasingly clearer possibility of a no deal, is causing major economic unrest for these companies,” NFIA commissioner Jeroen Nijland said.

“That is why more and more companies are orienting themselves in the Netherlands as a potential new base in the European market,” Nijland continued.

The businesses that left include those in finance, information technology, media, advertising, life sciences and health, according to NFIA, Reuters reports.

CEO of Aerospace company Airbus, Tom Enders, has warned in the past about leaving the UK on account of the economic uncertainty of Brexit, the Independent reports.

“We, along with many of our peers, have repeatedly called for clarity, but we still have no idea what is really going on here,” he said in January.

.@BorisJohnson says ‘we will easily cope with no deal’

The Times reports ‘Dutch government in talks with 325 British-based companies that are considering relocating after #Brexit‘

Was that the royal ‘we’ Johnson was using?

— Tom Brake MP ???? (@thomasbrake) August 26, 2019

“Please don’t listen to the Brexiteers’ madness which asserts that ‘because we have huge plants here we will not move and we will always be here’. They are wrong,” he continued.

More than 275 top British financial companies have left the country, relocated staff, or established overseas entities in preparation for the anticipated ramifications of Brexit, the Financial News reports.

“The [Brexit] impact is bigger than we had expected, and likely to get worse in future,” William Wright, the founder and managing director of New Financial, said.

The Netherlands is competing with Germany, Belgium, Ireland, and France to attracted businesses moving out of the UK due to Brexit, Reuters says.