Trade and the Balance of Payments

After more promising signs in H1 2013, the official data for the latter part of the year was very disappointing given the improved economic performance of many of the UK's trading partners. The latest monthly data – for the three months to November – showed the volume of non‐oil goods exports up less than 1% compared with a year earlier, with exports to the European Union up just 0.6%. This runs contrary to the much more upbeat surveys, which have all reported greater momentum in recent months…