China overtakes Germany as UK's biggest supplier of goods

The continued global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with uncertainty surrounding the effect of EU exit have contributed to increased volatility in UK trade in goods across 2020 and into early 2021, ONS said in its analysis of UK trade in goods in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the end of the EU transition period on December 31, 2020.

UK's total trade in goods with EU countries decreased by 23.1 per cent and with non-EU countries decreased by 0.8 per cent comparing Quarter 1, 2021 with Quarter 1, 2018. The ONS compared with 2018 data for longer-term comparisons as the most recent period in which relatively stable trade patterns were observed.

Of the UK’s top five import partners—Germany, the US, China, Netherlands and France—China is the only one in which imports grew between Quarter 1, 2018 and Quarter 1, 2021. The recent increase in imports from China shows a continuation of the long-term trend of increasing imports since the beginning of ONS records in 1997 although this was accelerated during the second half of 2020, likely because of the relatively limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Chinese exports.

Additionally, UK imports of textile fabrics from China jumped in 2020, boosted by demand for face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE), essential in the UK management of the pandemic, ONS said in its analysis titled 'The impacts of EU exit and the coronavirus on UK trade in goods'.

Germany, however, continues to be the UK's largest EU trading partner. Since the beginning of the ONS trade in goods data time series in 1997, the UK has imported more from Germany than from any other country, with the exception of Quarter 4, 2000 and Quarter 1, 2001, in which the UK imported more from the United States.

However, since April 2019, there has been a decline in imports from Germany, which coincides with increased uncertainty around previous EU exit dates and, from Quarter 2, 2020, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. From Quarter 2, 2020, the UK has imported more from China than it has from Germany.

In Quarter 1, 2021, the proportion of UK total imports from Germany decreased by 2.6 percentage points to 11.8 per cent compared with Quarter 1, 2018. Between December 2020 and January 2021, Germany experienced the greatest value goods import fall of any major trading partner, decreasing by £1.7 billion (30.5 per cent), ONS said in its analysis.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)