The UK produces a wide range of products for export but also imports a vast amount of food, electronics, energy and other consumer goods. According to the government department for Business, Innovation and Skills between 1998 and 2008, goods exports grew by nearly 100 per cent and goods imports grew by 111.5 per cent.The report says that UK manufacturing exports have been shifting towards high and medium high technology manufacturers, demonstrating a change in trend in the past 10 years. Barring slight dips around the years 1985, 1994 and every year since 2007, goods exports, imports, services exports, imports and GDP have been increasing. The value of the import and export of goods has consistently been over twice the value of the import and export of services. Since 1994, the UK’s share of the global import and export market has stayed pretty stable, though dropped slightly from around 5 per cent to around 3 per cent, around the same level as France and Japan, above Russia and Brazil, below Germany and the USA and overtaken by China in 2004. Sterling fell dramatically in 2007/08, but the Bank of England claimed that this held up the exports of goods, with products from Britain costing less to overseas buyers as the rate of the pound was lower than usual. As mentioned earlier, the UK has shifted to higher technology manufactured goods, valued at around 250 billion USD in 2008, 150 billion USD higher than in 1990. This total is higher than the global average. The last 10 years have seen a massive increase in exports to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and a minor increase in exports to France and Germany. Britain’s imports from China have trebled in the period between 2002 and 2007. These facts, figures, trends and more can be found at www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/international-trade-investment
