Britain reported Friday a slump in exports of goods in May but the bad news was offset by hopes that a slide in the pound since the Brexit referendum will power trade in the months ahead. News of the weaker export performance came as Britain contemplated the need to rebuild its global trade relations once it quits the 28-nation European Union. The island nation exported £23.7 billion (28 billion euros/$31 billion) in goods in May, a drop of £2.1 billion from the previous month, said the Office for National Statistics.
With imports dropping too, but at a slower pace, the overall deficit in goods trade widened to £9.9 billion from £9.4 billion over the same period, nearly three-quarters of it with the EU. Britain may get a boost, however, from a 10-percent drop in sterling since the June 23 referendum on leaving the EU, said Paul Hollingsworth, who analyses the British economy for Capital Economics research group.
"Any improvement is likely to be slow against a background of fairly sluggish global growth and uncertainty about future trade relationships between the UK and other countries," he cautioned. Britain's business minister Sajid Javid was on Friday holding post-Brexit talks on the country's future trade relationship with India, the first of many such discussions planned with world powers.