IT may be the summer recess but the Government does appear to have its head down getting into the detail of the post-referendum position, which is of such importance to our exporters, writes James Ramsbotham.

We really need our politicians to commit to making Great Britain the absolute best place to do business.

We certainly have all the right foundations built up over so many centuries of overseas trade.

As well as this, our country is a highly-respected trading partner, in part due to our British legal system, which is held in such high regard throughout the world.

For inward investors, we also have the most flexible labour laws in Europe, while continuing to protect employees.

In my view we could look to Singapore as a perfect example of what we could emulate.

When it separated from Malaysia 50 years ago, it set out to be the very best place to do business and this ambition has been delivered with a long-standing successful track record.

We need our Government to have the same entrepreneurial attitude.

We need them to give real confidence to the business community.

Then, as a region, we will not only retain current investments: we will instil such certainty in terms of our workforce and location that we will attract even greater future investment.

I am sure we all realise there can be no fine detail at present but if we commit to making this country a fantastic place to thrive and invest, everything else will follow.

That is the big picture but we also need some immediate practical steps to be taken.

I believe the best route forward is to focus on our well-established clusters of excellence such as the automotive, process and subsea industries when tackling the post-EU trade agreements.

We also need to look at the main countries with which we trade.

At present the UK has trade agreements with around 60 countries and there has to be a system to prioritise which ones are most important.

For example we, as a region, do a fair amount of business with South Africa exporting food and drink, electrical goods, construction and process industries.

Once we are doing our own negotiations we need to assess the value of our markets.

We cannot set up these intricate arrangements overnight and equally our businesses cannot halt their orders and wait for the Government’s still-to-be-devised export procedures to catch up.

In the North-East, our major exporting destinations are continental Europe (primarily for the automotive sector) and the US.

We will be campaigning hard to ensure these countries are made a priority for our future, brave new world.

James Ramsbotham is chief executive at the North East England Chamber of Commerce