Trade Deficit In Goods Now £27.4bn

The deficit on UK trade in goods widened by £0.9bn to £27.4bn in Q2 2014 compared with a deficit of £26.5bn in Q1 2014. There was a change in value of -£0.5bn or 0.7% in total exports to £71.3bn and a change of -£0.4bn or 0.4% to £98.7bn in total imports in Q2 2014.

At the level of the change in value by industry, exports in agriculture, forestry and fishing products fell by £45m and imports fell by £9m. Information and communications services exports increased by £25m and imports also increased by £2m. In professional, scientific and technical services exports fell by £3m and imports fell by £1m. Arts, entertainment and recreation imports increased by £91m and imports fell by £198m.

Fall Of 0.2% In GDP

The preliminary estimates of GDP published by the ONS show that GDP fell by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012. Output fell in the production and construction indistries by 0.4% and 3% respectively but services grew by 0.1% following a decrease of 0.1% in the previous quarter. A closer analysis shows that the decreases in the production industries were driven by mining and quarrying and manufacturing. An increase in retail and food and beverage services contributed to the 0.1% increase in the distribution, hotels and restaurants sector and computer programming, consultancy and related services and motion picture, video and television production also made a significant contribution to the increase of 0.4% in transport, storage and communication. Financial services made the biggest contribution to the 0.1% decrease in business services and finance and health and sports activities, amusement and recreation made the biggest contribution to the 0.2% increase in government and other services. Agriculture, forestry and fishing fell by 1.9%.

Natural Resources And Environmental Accounts

The ONS recently published the UK's environmental accounts for 2011 and they are described as satellite accounts to the main national accounts. They provide information on a wide range of things to do with atmospheric emissions, natural resources such as lands cover, oil and gas reserves, forestry, trade in basic materials, physical flows and monetary accounts related to the industrial, commercial and domestic sectors.

The effects of our activity on the environment have been an important policy issue for the last 40-50 years. There is growing concern about the impact of economic activity on both the global and local environment and also recognition that economic growth and human welfare depend on the enviroment. Raw materials and energy for goods and services, the absorption of waste, basic life support roles and amenities such as landscape are all services provided by the environment.

Environmental accounts provide data on the impact of economic activity on the environment, resource use and the taxes and subsidies associted with them and are sepearated into three dimensions: natural resources, physical flows and monetary. Natural resources accounts include oil and gas reserves, land cover and forestry.

Proven oil reserves at the end of 2009 were 378m tonnes. There has been a transfer of 38m tonnes from probable to proven reserves. Maximum oil reserves (proven, probable and possible) decreased by 19m tonnes to 1,111m tonnes in 2009. There are estimated to be hundreds of millions of tonnes of undiscovered recoverable oil reserves. Oil and gas reserves were worth an estimated value of £182.4bn in 2009, down 1.9% since 2008.

Total land cover in Great Britain is 22.6m hectares. Various types of grassland are the habitats that have increased between 1998 and 2007. Changes have also taken place in woodlands which have increased, arable and horticulture, which have decreased and bracken broad habitat which has also decreased.

The total area covered by woodland was 3.1m hectares or 12.7% of UK land area and is the highest since records began. The woodland area at the end of 2010 is 2.5 times tha area covered in 1924 (when records began). The area of new planting and restocking in 2010-11 was 22,700 hectares. Broadleaved species important for the expansion of the area of native woodland was 82% of new planting but only 27% of restocking.

There was an 8.4% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 compared with 2008 bringing the total down by 58.1m tonnes to 636m tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Material productivity is used to assess progress towards sustainable development by dividing GDP by Domestic Material Consumption (DMC). The environmental accounts show that between 1990 and 2009 material productivity increrased and the trend indicates that material use is falling in relation to economic activity and supports evidence that suggests that economic growth has decoupled from material use since 1990. Some of the environmental impacts associated with consumption may have been transferred abroad because the level of imports has generally risen over that period.

World Trade Report Calls For Natural Resource Trade Co-operation

The World Trade Report from the WTO says natural resources trade is creating many challenges for importing and exporting countries and co-operation by governments is required if they are to be addressed adequately.

The focus of the report is natural resources such as fuels, forestry, mining and fisheries and it examines the trade characteristics of natural resource markets, policy choices and international co-operation for proper management with particular reference to WTO.

Key elements of the report include the distinctive features of natural resource markets, gains from resources trade, externalities, technology effects on sustainability, high volatility, trade policy and trade regulation in natural resources.

The natural resources market total world trade value in 2008 was $3.7 trillion, equivalent to 24% of world merchandise trade. Fuels accounted for 57% in 1998 and 77% in 2008, fish and forestry each accounted for 3% and mining 18%. The top 15 exporters accounted for 52% of world resources trade in 2008 and top 15 importers 71% of traded resources.

First Quarter Increase In Productivity

Productivity increased in the first quarter of 2010 in all four key productivity measures covered by the ONS for the whole economy. Output per worker increased by 1.3% compared with the same time last year and 0.6% on the previous quarter. Output per job increased by 1.6% on last year and 0.6% on previous quarter. Output per hour increased by 1.2% on last year and 0.3% on previous quarter and unit wage costs increased by 3.9% compared with the same time last year and by 1.2% on the previous quarter.

Total productivity output per job was 2.9%. Total manufacturing output per job was 3.7%. The transport equipment sub-section contributed an increase of 25.6% in output per job to the overall manufacturing figure and 21% output per hour worked and 'other non-metallic minerals' contributed an increase of 13.3% in output per job on the same quarter a year ago.

Services increased output per job by 0.4% on the same time last year and 0.3% per job and 0.2% per hour on the previous quarter. Distribution hotels and restaurants increased output per hour by 4.5% on the same quarter a year ago and distribution 6.5%.

The latest available data on agriculture, forestry and fisheries show that output fell by 8.5% per job and by 12% per hour worked in 2009 compared with 2008.