UK’s trade deficit is £2.1bn higher than last year – how’s that healing economy coming along again Mr Cameron?
The raft of poor data the past couple of weeks just show’s little sign of letting up (there must be more BoE money printing on the horizon). This time it’s the turn of the UK’s trade deficit.
From the government funded ONS report:
- Seasonally adjusted, the UK’s deficit on trade in goods and services was £4.2 billion in August, compared with a deficit of £1.7 billion in July.
- There was a deficit of £9.8 billion on goods, partly offset by an estimated surplus of £5.7 billion on services.
- In the three months ending August 2012, trade in goods and services was estimated to have been in deficit by £9.8 billion, compared with a deficit of £9.2 billion in the preceding three months.
- Excluding oil and erratic items, the volume of exports was 1.2 per cent lower in the three months ending August 2012 compared with the preceding three months. The volume of imports fell 0.8 per cent over the same period.
- As ONS previously announced in its statement on 3 July 2012, exports and imports price indices data are not available in this month’s UK Trade publication. The statement detailing the omission of these data can be found on the ONS website.
But it’s when you compare this August to last August you can see just how poor this month’s number really is:
(click for sharper image)
That’s a $2.1bn bigger trade deficit than last August. Which now means that the UK hasn’t run a trade surplus since 1998:
(click for sharper image)
And the UK’s exports fell for the month:
The UK’s deficit on trade in goods widened to £9.8 billion in August, up from £7.3 billion in July. Exports of goods fell by £1.0 billion (4.0 per cent), from £25.7 billion in July to £24.6 billion in August. Imports of goods increased by £1.5 billion (4.5 per cent), from £33.0 billion in July to £34.5 billion in August.
And down for the past three months:
In the three months ending August 2012, the deficit on trade in goods was £27.2 with a deficit of £26.6 billion in the three months ending May 2012.
Total exports fell by £2.3 billion (3.1 per cent) to £73.9 billion and total imports fell by £1.7 billion (1.7 per cent) to £101.1 billion.
And here’s who we’re trading with, or not as the case maybe:
(click for sharper image)
The US is still the UK’s biggest export partner but note that big drop off to Germany last month.
So what can we expect the policy response will be to the fact that the UK is simply not exporting enough and importing too much? You guessed it, the call will go out that the UK needs to devalue its currency to make its exports more ‘attractive’ (cheaper). Basically keep doing what the UK has been doing but only more so, and of course hope for a different result.
And we’ve no doubt that the BoE will oblige in such economic fallacy nonsense in the next couple of months and announce yet more money printing in a effort to get the £:$ cross below $1.5 and beyond (currently around $1.60).
Related posts:
- UK Production and Manufacturing both fall 1.2% for the year – hardly an economy ‘slowly healing’ is it Mr Cameron?
- If the economy is doing so well John Major then why did the government run a record deficit in August?
- More government spending + Increasing debt + massive deficit financing + higher taxes + enormous money printing = double-dip recession… who knew?
- And the hits keep coming: UK house prices fall 1.9% from a year ago – now down 80% when measured in gold
- The UK Government borrowed more this August than at any time in the country’s history
Link to this article: : http://www.goldmadesimplenews.com/markets/uks-trade-deficit-is-2-1bn-higher-than-last-year-hows-that-healing-economy-coming-along-again-mr-cameron-8321/
Posted by Thomas Paterson on Oct 9 2012. Filed under Markets.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
