UK trade, February 2014
The deficit of trade in goods and services for February 2014 was £2.1bn, compared with a deficit of £2.2bn in the previous month. The deficit on trade in goods was £9.1bn in February 2014; the trade position reflects exports minus imports.
Exports of goods decreased by 1.6% between January and February 2014 to £23.5bn. Imports for the same period decreased by 2.2% to £32.6bn; roughly three-quarters of this movement is attributed to a fall in the import of erratics, which decreased by 34.5% from the previous month. Erratics are defined as ships, aircraft, precious stones and silver. Removing the impact of erratics, specifically imports of aircraft which decreased by 46.3% from the previous month, imports decreased by 0.6% between January and February 2014.
In February 2014, exports of goods to the European Union (EU) decreased by £0.3bn to £11.7bn; of which £0.3bn was attributed to fuels and in particular, trade in oil. Imports from the EU increased by £0.3bn to £17.8bn, mainly due to imports of finished manufactures which rose £0.2bn from the previous month.
In February 2014, exports of goods to countries outside of the EU decreased by less than £0.1bn to £11.9bn; an increase of £0.2bn from exports of fuels was offset by decreases in all other key commodities. Imports from countries outside of the EU decreased by £1.0bn to £14.8bn. The decrease reflects falls in imports of finished manufactures (specifically aircraft) and imports of fuels (specifically oil).
Trade statistics for any one month can be erratic. For that reason, it is recommended to compare the latest three months against the preceding three months and the same three months of the preceding year.
The deficit on trade in goods narrowed by £3.0bn to £26.2bn in the three months ending February 2014, compared with the previous three months. Exports of goods decreased by 2.5% to £72.7bn in the latest three months. Imports of goods decreased by 4.7% to £99.0bn in the latest three months.
The decrease in imports in the latest three months is split roughly equally between the EU countries and those countries outside the EU. The fall in EU imports reflects a drop in trade in oil over a three month period, whereas outside of the EU, although oil imports have fallen, the most substantial decrease was seen in imports of finished manufactures.
This bulletin also reports on trade in services. However, the information on trade in services is mainly obtained from quarterly surveys, in some cases underpinned by larger annual surveys. That means that the data for the latest months are inevitably uncertain.
Longer term perspective
The value of trade in goods grew steadily from the beginning of 2007 to mid 2008. The onset of the global economic downturn in mid-2008 affected the economic performance of the UK’s major trading partners, and the value of both UK exports and imports fell sharply until Q2 2009. Growth in the value of trade in goods resumed from mid-2009 with improving global economic conditions. However, the value of both UK exports and imports have remained largely flat since mid-2011 with the continuing difficulties in many economies.
In 2013, the deficit on trade in goods narrowed by £0.9bn to £107.8bn (annually). The level of exports increased to a record £304.7bn in 2013, up 1.4% from £300.5bn in 2012.
However, the rise in exports was accompanied by an increase in imports to a record £412.5bn in 2013, up 0.8% from £409.2bn in 2012. Despite these record levels of exports and imports, annual growth in the value of trade in goods has slowed considerably since 2010 and 2011.
