Following the vote for Brexit in the June 23 Referendum, Michael Williams, the Acting Chief Economist of the Department for International Trade, will summarise the Government’s plans and direction of travel on trade policy.

Professor Jim Rollo CMG, Deputy Head of the Sussex Trade Policy Observatory, will analyse the policy challenges.

The meeting will start at 6pm and will be followed by a networking drinks reception.

Michael is the acting Chief Economist and Director of Analysis in the new Department for International Trade. For the last five years he was joint head of the UK’s Trade Policy Unit in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills where his responsibilities included trade analysis, import policy and trade defence, including import licensing and enforcement, Technical Barriers to Trade and Market Access matters, and the UK’s international investment policy. Michael is the UK’s representative to the OECD’s Trade and Investment Committees. He is a member of the UK Government Economic Service and has held a range of posts in UK Government departments including in BIS, Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Jim is Professor Emeritus in the University of Sussex. He is Deputy Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory, Research Affiliate at the Centre for Analysis of Regional Integration at Sussex (CARIS), Associate Research Fellow at Chatham House. He is a Founder and Director of Interanalysis Ltd, the home of TradeSift, innovative software for trade policy analysis. He was Professor of European Economic Integration at the University of Sussex and Co-Director of the Sussex European Institute from 1999 to 2011 and Editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS) from 2003 -2010. Until December 1998, He was Chief Economic Adviser in the  Foreign and Commonwealth  Office and from 1989-1993, Director of the International Economics Research Programme at Chatham House.  

Please contact the SBE office on admin@sbe.co.uk to register or for more details