UK Trade Deficit Narrows in January

March 12, 2015 Share Print 0

The UK trade deficit has narrowed to £616m in January from a five-year high of £2.1bn in December, latest figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.

Imports decreased by £2.5bn from December 2014, the largest monthly decrease since July 2006.
The large decrease in imports was mainly due to a £1.3bn fall in the imports of fuels, specifically oil.

Imports of oil were £2.2bn in January, their lowest level since May 2009.

Excluding the impact of falling oil prices on the trade deficit, which also led to a decline of UK fuel exports, the balance of trade in goods excluding oil also narrowed to a deficit of £7.8bn.

That was the lowest monthly deficit in goods since June 2013.

The UK’s goods trade deficit with the 28 EU nations narrowed slightly to £6.67bn.

The pound was ahead against the dollar after the ONS data announcement, with sterling strengthening by 0.44% against the greenback.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.