Brexit is costing JD Sports millions
The executive chairman of JD Sports, Peter Cowgill, has said the retail group will consider opening a new distribution centre in the European Union, creating around 1,000 new jobs.
He said the new trading arrangements with the European Union following the UK’s exit were costing JD Sports “double-digit millions”. The group sources sports shoes and clothing from Asia and distributes them to its stores in the EU from a distribution centre in Rochdale, near Manchester.
Since the UK’s exit from the EU in 2020 and the end of a transition period at the start of this year, the products JD Sports moves from Rochdale to its stores in continental Europe attract tariffs of 12%. This, plus the extra red-tape, is what is costing the company so much money.
Mr Cowgill told BBC Radio on February 9 that the situation regarding the trading relationship between the EU and the UK was “considerably worse than we expected”.
JD Sports said the new jobs in Europe would not come at the cost to existing jobs in the UK, but it said employment it might have created in its home market would now go elsewhere.
