LONDON, June 7 (Xinhua): British deficit on trade in goods and services was estimated to have been 2.5 billion pounds (US$4.2 billion) in April 2014, significantly bigger than the 1.1 billion pounds a month before, said Office for National Statistics (ONS) Friday.
Britain registered a 9.6 billion pounds deficit on goods trade, and an estimated surplus of 7.1 billion pounds on services in April, data showed.
Exports of goods decreased by 4.4 per cent between March and April 2014 to 23.4 billion pounds, attributed to falls in semi-manufactured goods with exports of chemical manufacturers and material manufacturers, said ONS.
Imports of goods increased slightly by 0.8 per cent over the same period to 33 billion pounds.
In the three months to April, British exports of goods declined by 2.3 billion pounds to 71.3 billion pounds, while imports of goods shrank by 2.4 billion pounds to 98 billion pounds. The deficit on trade over the period was 26.7 billion pounds, figures also showed.
April's British trade figures suggest that the economy is still struggling to rebalance towards exports, commented Samuel Tombs, British economist at Capital Economics.
"Looking ahead, although surveys of export orders have been strong recently, it's likely that the full adverse impact on exports of sterling's 10 per cent or so trade-weighted appreciation over the year has not come through yet," said Tombs in an analysis note.
The London-based economic research company expects that the trade deficit will narrow only gradually over the course of this year and the recovery to remain largely a domestic affair.
British trade deficit expands
FE Team | Published: June 08, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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