The year ahead

As we kick of the New Year, Andrew Allcock sets the general business and technology scene, taking in comments from organisations and companies within the magazine’s sphere of operation

The obvious statement to make is that March 29 this year sees the Brexit transition period commence, assuming that nothing has significantly changed since this article was penned in mid-December. That transition period will last until December 2020, again unless things have changed.

At the very top of the economic tree is global activity. International news about the trade friction between America and China is prominent. Mid-last-year, the International Monetary Fund put the 2019 cost of the ‘conflict’ at 0.5% of world GDP in its July 2018 report, but other observers have said that might now look conservative.