Who's Buying

Sometimes cutting through the political madness in the UK is impossible and seems to lack all logic. Which is why the Office for Nation Statistics (ONS) is frequently the rarest of gems in that it can be trusted to cut through the spin and simply give hard, credible and factual information. Perfect! Essentially, they are the ‘go to’ guys for evidence to support or challenge the Government and political spin.

 

ONS’s recent publication focussed on UK’s goods exports. Or to put that another way……who is buying the stuff we make. Politics is so often linked to money and who is buying can explain plenty of policies and behaviour.

 

The graph below shows our 10 biggest buyers of UK exports over the last 10 years.

 

 

 

Interestingly……

 

1.     Only China is purchasing more from the UK then they did 10 years ago (up 400%).

 

2.     US buys 20% less than 2004.

 

3.     Europe continue to be a huge buyer and collectively our biggest ‘customer’.

 

4.     India doesn’t make the top 10 yet and is predicted to be the third largest economy in the world in a decade.

 

Based on the graph, you would expect plenty of schmoozing with US / China / India going forwards and a reluctance to leave the Euro. Now sit back and watch W1 at work.

 

Money talks after all.