Nick Robson, head of credit, political and security risk, JLT Specialty Limited (JLT), warned that politics are exerting ever greater influence over cross border trade and that this influence shows no signs of abating.

"Recent events in the Ivory Coat, Eypt and Libya have highlighted the growing risk issues around cross border trading. Many businesses are more than aware of the physical and more obvious risks in this area, but are less familiar with the potential for interruption caused by politically driven regulation including sanctions, arising from multiple multilateral, national, regional and domestic sources. It is this increasing propensity to see politically driven regulation that may directly or indirectly impact upon trading partners and the advisers to such partners, which can create a real headache for business. Of course it can also create real opportunity for those businesses who understand the regulation and can work effectively with it.

He believes there is a misconception that this is a short-term problem, and one that impacts only politically sensitive industries, like the defence industry, for instance.

"Whilst understanding the component parts of these cross border risks is challenging, it is possible and this understanding will be key to successful trade in the current and future international business environment," he adds. "There is also a well established insurance market that can underwrite risk associated with international trade, which together with appropriate risk analysis provides many businesses with the security and confidence to realise trading opportunities in the challenging environment we operate in today".

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