The Pink Book reveals 2024’s UK trade was far from in the pink, says Parcelhero
The Pink Book reveals 2024’s UK trade wasn’t in the pink. The first half of 2025 has also been patchy, warns Parcelhero.
The Pink Book 2025 – the official annual review of cross-border transactions – has revealed that, although the UK’s trade balance narrowed, our trade in goods deficit widened to £210.7bn last year. Turning to 2025, Q1 and Q2 exports to the UK’s two key markets – the US and EU – also present a mixed picture, says the international delivery expert Parcelhero.
The eagerly awaited ‘Pink Book 2025’ review of UK trade has revealed a mixed set of economic results for last year, says the international delivery expert Parcelhero. The good news was that the UK’s trade balance narrowed to a deficit of £25.1bn (0.9% of gross domestic product or GDP) from a deficit of £32.1bn (1.2% of GDP) in 2023.
The Pink Book also looks at wider economic results. It reveals that the UK’s current account deficit (which includes factors such as overseas investment in the UK) narrowed to £63.2bn (2.2% of GDP) in 2024 from a revised deficit of £98.3bn (3.6% of GDP) in 2023.
However, the bad news was that Britain’s trade in goods deficit widened to 7.3% (£210.7bn) in 2024, up from 7% of GDP (£192.1bn) in 2023. The Pink Book says last year’s trade in goods deficit is down to a fall in the value of goods exports compared to 2023.
Parcelhero’s head of consumer research, David Jinks MILT, says: ‘To put these figures into context, the UK recorded the second-largest current account deficit of the G7 (Group of Seven) economies in 2024, at 2.2% of GDP. The USA recorded the largest deficit of all, at 4% of GDP. In contrast, Germany recorded the highest current account surplus of 5.8% of its GDP.
‘These Pink Book results don’t exactly show the UK economy was in the pink of health in 2024. However, separate quarterly trade estimates recently released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that the UK enjoyed strong combined exports of goods and services to both of its two key export markets, the European Union and the USA, in the first half of 2025.
‘In Q1 (January-March) 2025, UK exports of goods and services to the 27 countries of the EU totalled £92.837bn. In Q2 (April-June) they rose to £96.279bn. Year-on-year, that was a significant jump. That’s because in Q1 2024, UK exports to the EU were £87.561bn, climbing to £91.884 in Q2. Comparing Q1 and Q2 2025 with the same period last year, that’s a £9.67bn increase YOY.
‘It was a similarly rosy picture for the UK’s combined goods and services exports to the USA in the first half of this year. Remember, the US is the UK’s largest single nation market. Total exports to the USA were £50.893bn in Q1 2025 and £49.781bn in Q2 – a healthy result when we consider the potential impact of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs revealed on 2 April. In comparison, Q1 2024 saw £47.162bn-worth of exports in goods and services and Q2 2024 £50.479bn. As a result, the combined total for Q1 and Q2 2025 was over £3bn up on the same period last year.
‘However, in terms of the physical export of goods alone (excluding services) the picture is less a rosy pink than a bright red. The combined value of this year’s Q1 and Q2 goods exports to the EU was £89.044bn, compared with last year’s combined Q1 and Q2 figures of £91.542bn. Similarly, the combined value of the UK’s goods exports to the USA for Q1 and Q2 was £31.894bn this year, compared to £33.331bn for the same period last year. This shows that UK service exports are having to do a lot of the heavy lifting while goods exports have struggled.
‘Further government analysis reveals that total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and the US was £331.2bn in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2025, an increase of 6.2% or £19.4bn over the four quarters to the end of Q2 2024. However, the total UK export of goods alone to the US was valued at only £11.1bn in the same period, a decrease of 22.1% YOY.
‘Whatever the ongoing impact of US tariff reforms and any other exporting issues with the US, we are inevitably looking at a period of continuing volatility and changes to US shipments. The US is Parcelhero’s biggest individual overseas market. Live information on US courier services, as well as plenty of advice on shipping to America, can be seen at https://www.parcelhero.com/en-gb/international-courier-services/usa-parcel-delivery