Strong Month For UK Goods Trade

19th August 2024

William Bain, Head of Trade Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, responds to the latest trade figures published by the ONS

Responding to the latest trade figures published by the ONS, William Bain, Head of Trade Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: 

“June was a strong month for UK trade, with goods exports to the EU experiencing a double-digit rise. Services growth was steady for the month, and throughout the last quarter. 

“The data reflects the strengths of the UK’s export portfolio in professional, travel, financial and business services as well as manufacturing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and transport goods.  

“To keep up this momentum, we want to work with the Government on its forthcoming Trade Strategy. It must ensure the UK has the right framework in place to increase exports and improve the efficiency and security of its supply chains.  

“This must include a focus on improving trading terms with the EU, to cut the costs of doing trade and sustain June’s welcome sales growth in our largest export market.” 

The UK Trade Picture In Detail 

UK trade data reveals a strong goods trading month in June, rounding off the second quarter of 2024 with growing exports and imports. 

Goods Trade in June 

The volume of goods exports (excluding inflation) rose by 11% in June, with substantial increases in both EU exports (up by 12.7%) and non-EU trade (up 9.4%).  

Imports also saw a significant upswing in volumes for June with an overall increase of 7.8%. EU goods imports rose by 9.9% and non-EU goods by 9.4%. 

Drivers for the rise in exports to the EU were machinery and transport equipment. This included aircraft and electrical machinery to Germany, mechanical machinery to France, and pharmaceutical and medicinal products to the Republic of Ireland. 

For rest of the world, the main drivers were higher chemicals exports, particularly to the USA. Sales of medicinal products to the US were also up. 

For imports, the rise in EU goods was led by machinery and transport equipment - including aircraft from France. There was also an increase in imports of various manufactured goods from Germany. With non-EU imports, machinery and transport equipment sales played a key role in the increase – particularly aircraft from the USA and cars from China. 

Services 

On services trade, imports were estimated to have fallen by 2.6% in volume terms (excluding inflation), while exports continued on a steady path with a rise of 0.5%. 

Q2 2024 performance 

Goods? 

Imports from the EU across Q2 rose by 3.6%, in seasonally adjusted value terms, principally through stronger trade in machinery and transport equipment (cars, ships and mechanical machinery). On non-EU goods imports, there was a larger rise of 10.4%, driven by higher fuel (refined oil from India), and machinery and transport equipment (aircraft from the US and ships from China). 

Exports growth was smaller across the quarter than imports, with EU goods rising by 1.1% in seasonally adjusted value terms (driven by higher chemicals and manufactured materials). Non-EU goods rose by 1.5% (due to chemicals, machinery and transport equipment). 

Services 

Services imports rose by 3.3% compared with the first three months of the year, on the seasonally adjusted values basis, with strong performance from business, intellectual property and construction services.  

Exports grew by 2.8%, with business services, travel, telecoms and IT services doing particularly well. 

More detail on the ONS data can be found here.