Britain would face tortuous negotiations to fix the terms of its membership of the World Trade Organisation if it voted to leave the EU, the organisation's director-general has warned.

    Leading campaigners for Brexit have proposed that Britain should leave the EU's single market and could rely on WTO rules to access European and other markets if it was unable to secure replacement trade deals.

    In an interview with the Financial Times, Roberto Azevedo signalled this would not be straightforward. He said a British exit from the EU would lead to unprecedented negotiations between Britain and the Geneva-based institution's 161 other members.

    Britain joined the WTO under the auspices of the EU and its terms of membership have been shaped by two decades of negotiations led by Brussels. If Britain voted to leave the EU it would not be allowed simply to "cut and paste" those terms, Mr Azevedo said. "It is a very important decision for the British people. It is a sovereign decision and they will decide what they want to decide. But it is very important, particularly with regard to trade, which is something very important for the British economy, that people have the facts and that they don't underestimate the challenges," Mr Azevedo said. 

    An exit from the EU, for example, would cause Britain to lose the preferential access to other markets covered by 36 trade agreements with 58 countries negotiated by the EU. As a result, to remain compliant with WTO rules Britain would have to impose higher "most favoured nation" tariffs on imports from those 58 countries, while they would have to levy their own surcharges on British exports, Azevedo added.

    A WTO analysis had calculated the cost of the additional tariffs on goods imports to British consumers at £9 billion ($18 billion), while British exports would be subject to a further £5.5 billion in tariffs. The only other option available to Britain would be removing all barriers for all WTO members, in effect turning its economy into a duty-free one like Singapore.

Source : QNA