Most British businesses have not made Brexit plans

Most British businesses have not made any Brexit plans, a leading business organization said on Thursday.

A

survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD) showed just 29 percent of UK

companies had contingency plans in place. The poll of 500 business

leaders showed that less than half had even thought about the

opportunities or risks presented by the UK’s departure from the bloc.

The survey said many firms remain unclear about what leaving the European Union will mean.

The IoD said 11 percent of its members had begun

implementing Brexit contingency plans while 30 percent were considering

their options but had yet to act, less than two years before Britain is

scheduled to leave the EU.

"Some changes and costs

are inevitable ... but the more information the government can provide

on the process of Brexit, the more companies will be reassured they do

not have to jump to relocate staff or operations," IoD Director General

Stephen Martin said.

A third of the nearly 1,000 firms that took part in the IoD survey this month said they expected to do no Brexit planning.

The

IoD said this comes as academics have already warned that there would

be "widespread, damaging and pervasive" costs if Britain failed to reach

at least a transitional trade deal with the EU before it leaves.

Britain

started full Brexit talks on Monday but Prime Minister Theresa May's

government is split over how much it should focus on minimizing the

disruption of leaving the EU for businesses or prioritize other goals

such as asserting the supremacy of British courts and migration

controls.

Major banks have started to move staff from London and

the policy chief of the city's financial district told Reuters recently

that Britain must negotiate a staggered departure from the EU in the

next few months or risk seeing thousands of finance jobs move overseas.

Anand

Menon, a politics professor at King's College London who directs a

research group into Brexit, said a failure to reach a deal with the EU

would be highly costly.

Nuclear plants might be

unable to operate, airlines might be unable to fly and businesses would

find it hard to enforce contracts without a deal, the group, UK in a

Changing Europe, said.

"Our findings show a chaotic Brexit would, at least in

the short term, spawn a political mess, a legal morass and an economic

disaster," Menon said.

Credit ratings agency Moody's said on Tuesday that ports and airports could face "dramatic" restrictions without a deal.

Britain's

government says it is confident it will reach an agreement but has not

ruled out abandoning talks if it believes the EU is seeking to inflict

long-term damage on Britain.