In a 10-page report, entitled "Customising Brexit: A hybrid option for a UK-EU trade framework," the Institute of Directors (IoD) urged London to seek a "bespoke, partial customs union with the EU."
"This partial customs union would cover industrial and processed agricultural goods, removing the need for UK manufacturing firms to face costly ‘rules of origin’ that could render a tariff-free deal meaningless for many companies in these sectors," the paper said.
"We must be ambitious in undertaking the most important negotiations this country has embarked on for decades and push for a bespoke solution," IoD head Stephen Martin said in a statement.
Allie Renison, the author of the paper in charge of Europe and trade policy, said there has been much talk and much less action on forging a UK-EU trade relationship 20 months on from the referendum, in which a majority of UK voters backed leaving the bloc to pursue a global Britain.