Trade In Goods Is Down, Services Unchanged

The UK trade deficit in the value of goods and services grew from £3.1bn in September to £3.2bn in October. The difference was in value of the trade in goods where the deficit increased from £6.9bn in September to £7.1bn in October. The trade surplus in services was unchanged over the month at £3.9bn. Export and import prices both rose by 1.6%.

The volume of exports was up 3.8% and imports by 4.3% inOctober compared with September. There were big increases in the export by value of oil, cars, intermediate goods and semi-manufactured goods other than chemicals between October and September. Imports of chemicals, consumer goods and capital goods also increased significantly in terms of commodity value during the month. The value of exports of chemicals, cars, semi-manufactured goods and intermediate goods has also significantly increased as has the imports of cars, chemicals, intermediate goods and consumer goods over the year.

Trade in goods with EU countries showed a deficit of £3.6bn, up £0.4bn as exports rose by £0.4bn to £11.3bn and imports rose £0.8bn to £14.9bn. The deficit in trade with non-EU countries narrowed to £3.5bn from £3.8bn in September. Within the G7 countries, imports from the US went up £0.4bn and imports from Norway fell £0.2bn. There were no export movements over £0.2bn.

As the prices for both imports and exports were unchanged in October, the terms of trade remained the same as September. Over the quarter import prices increased by 1.6% and export prices by 2% giving an increase in the terms of trade. The balance on trade in oil was in deficit by £0.1bn from £0.5bn in September.

The surplus on trade in services as unchanged in October from September at £3.9bn. Exports rose to £12.9bn and imports rose to £9bn. Over the quarter the surplus widenend to £12bn from £11.4bn.