Trade and Investment Core Statistics Book Latest statistics on trade, investment and the economy Last updated: 20 September 2021 Next major update: 20 October 2021 Contact: [email protected] CONTENTS50T62T62T Things you need to know about this publication ............................................... 3 Statistics summary sheet ................................................................................. 6 Top and emerging partner countries, 2020 ................................................... 10 Top and fastest-growing goods and services, 2020 ....................................... 14 Trade statistics ............................................................................................... 17 Exports ................................................................................................................ 17 Total (goods and services) exports .................................................................. 17 Goods exports ................................................................................................. 27 Services exports .............................................................................................. 32 Imports ................................................................................................................ 39 Total (goods and services) imports .................................................................. 39 Goods imports ................................................................................................. 46 Services imports .............................................................................................. 51 Trade balance ..................................................................................................... 57 Total trade ........................................................................................................... 60 World trade forecasts .......................................................................................... 62 Current account balance ..................................................................................... 64 Trade in value added ........................................................................................... 66 FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) statistics ............................................................ 72 Inward FDI ....................................................................................................... 72 Outward FDI .................................................................................................... 74 Inward investment projects statistics ................................................................... 76 DIT statistics .................................................................................................... 76 Statistics summary sheet – Table of sources ................................................. 78 Update schedule ............................................................................................ 80 Glossary ........................................................................................................ 83 2 Things you need to know about this publication 1. The latest ONS release UK Trade: July 2021 covering UK trade data up to July 2021 includes trade after the EU exit transition period ended on 31 December 2020. Evidence suggests some trade in goods could have been affected by disruption caused by the end of the transition period. The last few months of 2020 saw increasing imports and exports of goods consistent with stockpiling in preparation for the end of the EU exit transition period, which was followed by likely unwinding of stocks in January and February 2021. 2. There has been a change in the data collection methods for GB goods exports to the EU. Data are now captured by customs declarations (consistent with data collection for UK goods trade with the Non-EU). There have been no changes to data collection methods for goods imports. 3. HMRC have discovered errors in their Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS) that are used to compile the ONS UK Trade statistics. This affects data back to January 2019 and mainly impacts data for goods exports to Non-EU countries. These errors have been corrected back to January 2020 since the ONS UK Trade: May 2021 release, and corrections will be made to the 2019 data at a later date. Please treat UK trade in goods data for 2019 in this publication as provisional until the corrections have been made. These errors also affect the HMRC Regional Trade Statistics (RTS) which will be corrected in the next HMRC RTS release due to be published in October 2021. Until then please treat RTS statistics in this publication as provisional. More information is available from the HMRC. 4. In addition to the changes facing the UK after the EU transition period ended, the UK and many of its trading partners continue to be impacted by the Coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic. Some of the figures within this publication suggest evidence of COVID-19-related impacts on UK trade. However, the full effects cannot be quantified as impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified. 5. For the latest statistics on trade and investment between the UK and all individual trading and investment partners please see the trade and investment factsheets. 6. These statistics are designated as Official Statistics under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. From August 2018 these statistics have been produced to fully comply with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has not assessed these statistics for compliance against the code and as such these statistics are not National Statistics. 3 7. This publication covers and summarises the wide range of statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), Department for International Trade (DIT), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and others into a single product. 8. The compendium brings together these statistics in a user-friendly publication with the aim of helping users to quickly find the most relevant and up to date trade and investment statistics. It provides the latest available statistics from a number of UK and international sources on a consistent basis and where inconsistencies exist explains the differences between the sources. The publication of the Trade and Investment Core Statistics Book will help to improve the accessibility of trade and investment statistics by helping both the professional and newcomers to trade and investment statistics navigate the various sources to identify the most relevant statistics and to present them in a consistent manner. 9. Due to the large number of data sources available it can be difficult to determine which is the best source of information for a particular statistic. Therefore DIT have produced this Technical Annex to provide more information about the different sources, including some information on the strengths and weaknesses of the statistics. 10. Additionally more information is available from the relevant data supplier which can be found by following the source link below the statistic of interest. 11. All figures are correct as of the date of release (on front page of this publication), and as reported by their data producer. The publication will be updated in line with the update schedule. 12. New or revised figures since the last publication will be highlighted in the statistics summary sheet in dark blue and with a red star () in the main text. 13. In some instances figures in the main commentary may differ to those in the Trade and investment statistics summary sheet. This is because more up-to-date figures on goods and services by partner country, consistent with the aggregate figures in the statistics summary sheet, are not available. This means that some tables and charts within the commentary, such as country ranking tables, use older data to provide these breakdowns. 14. For terms and definitions please see the glossary at the end of the publication. 15. Unless otherwise stated, all data are nominal (current prices), not adjusted for inflation. Real estimates (constant prices) take account of inflation. 16. Totals may not exactly match the sum of their parts due to rounding. 17. All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified. The exception to this is data sources that only provide annual data, such as the ONS Non-financial business economy, exporters and importers in Great Britain (Annual Business Survey): 2019 or Department for International Trade inward investment results 2020 to 2021, where seasonal adjustment is 4 not needed. Seasonally adjusted data available on a more frequent basis (e.g., quarterly) is often constrained so that when it is summed to get data for a calendar year it will match non-seasonally adjusted data for the same calendar year. 5 Trade and Investment Statistics Summary Sheet All statistics presented are based on published figures and the sources can be found on page 78 and 79. Rows where estimates changed since last iteration of the Statistics Summary Sheet are in dark blue Latest statistics Calendar year statistics Update schedule† Change on Year previous 12 Change on Latest Next # Statistic ending: Measure months Year Measure previous year release release Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 1 Annual real GDP growth Q2 2021 -1.2% Up 4.1 ppts 2020 -9.8% Down 11.3 ppts 12-Aug-21 30-Sep-21 Trade in goods and services Exports £569.8bn Down 10.2%