Leadership

Where and What to Export From the UK

By Julian Goldsmith

Updated on: January 25, 2010 / 11:54 AM EST / MoneyWatch

As Richard Northedge says, now is a good time to get into the export market. The value of the pound is low and domestic consumer spending is not likely to pick up to pre-recession levels for some time to come. It seems the UK must export or die.

The top ten exporting sectors brought in Â£250 billion to the UK economy last year, so there are markets overseas with a ready demand for UK goods and services.

But, the question remains -- where and what to export? Here's some figures from the latest Department for UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) reports that could point you to those lucrative foreign markets.

1 Where to go: In terms of countries, the top ten export markets for the UK in 2008 were:

USA
Germany
Netherlands
Ireland
France
Belgium/Luxembourg
Spain
Italy
Sweden
China - new in for that year

The European Union is the biggest regional export market with 51 per cent of total trade exports. The US alone has a 14 per cent share, with the rest of the world making up the remaining 35 per cent. Notice the absence of the other BRICs markets and other far-eastern countries. In fact, established UK exporting appears to be focused on countries that suffered most in the last 18 months.

2 Which sectors: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the financial sector is the top UK exporter, raking in about Â£53 billion for 2009. Extraction also figures highly, with the oil industry at number three, reaping Â£32 billion for the same year. Utilities also contributes to export revenues with power generating equipment pulling in Â£15 billion. Pharmaceuticals, travel and transport make up most of the rest of the pack.

However the revenue is somewhat spread with a catch-the-rest category of Other Business, with over Â£44 billion, taking it into second place in UKTI's top ten. Interestingly, Though UK exports are around 20 per cent of the global defence market it, only brought in a paltry Â£5 billion in 2009 -- clearly defence procurement is something you do in your own backyard.

3 What products: Again, the most lucrative products the UK exports are financial, with marine and aviation insurance bringing in Â£4.5 billion in 2008, for instance.

Although advanced engineering products bring in around a third of export revenues, on the whole the UK is better at exporting services and ideas than material products. Management consultancies exported Â£7 billion worth of services in 2008 and Law Society members contributed nearly Â£3 billion in the same year. TV, film and telecoms services brought in over Â£5 billion, with telecoms claiming the lion's share. Publishing brings in around the same as film and TV, of between Â£1 billion and Â£1.5 billion -- thank goodness for Harry Potter.

On the increase are life sciences (19 per cent growth in 2008) and TV format exports (25 per cent growth last year), such as Strictly Come Dancing and Wife Swap. so UK intellectual property is very much a big money maker overseas.

It may not be well known for a global bread-basket, but the UK is around the tenth biggest agriculture exporter and revenues in the food and beverages export market grew by 17 per cent in 2008 to just under Â£14 billion.