As talk of UK trade deals and international relations continue, and imports are at an all-time high reaching a value of over £54 billion at the start of this year, have you ever wondered what countries around the world are sending Brits?
It may be well-known that we get bananas from Colombia, cars from Korea and Germany and gold from the likes of South Africa, but what do other countries contribute to making sure the UK get the products they need?
Using OEC data, RS Components have created a map that highlights every country’s biggest UK export and there are a lot of random products that fall into a variety of categories.
The most popular and high-demand product to the UK is food and produce – with Iceland sending fish fillets, New Zealand sending lamb and poultry and Chile sending wine.
Although, the UK’s biggest import overall is gold from 13 countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Turkey – as of 2017 the value of gold in the UK is estimated to be worth £9.6 billion ($12.5 billion).
Over 20 countries send the UK fuel – a mixture of Crude Petroleum, Petroleum Gas and Refined Petroleum are sent from countries including Venezuela, Norway, Russia and Saudi Arabia which is expected as they are nations with above-average amounts of fuel readily available to use. However, with electronic vehicles surging in the UK and petrol prices increasing parallel can we expect this export to continue in years to come?
Last month 7,489 electric and alternative fuel vehicles were sold, up from the 3,968 sold in August of 2017. In total 94,094 cars were sold last month which shows that the demand for petrol may well reduce quite rapidly.
The UK is the tenth largest economy in the world – back in 2016, the UK exported $374 billion and imported nearly double of that amount, $609 billion. Therefore, this results in a negative trade balance of $235 billion. Due to the UK being its own isle, exporting has been a part of the economy for many years and after viewing trends it is only expected to increase.
Take a look at the map here to see what the rest of the world send to the UK and what we rely on other countries for the most.
