Despite the fact that the Pound has fallen in value, relative to other currencies, Britain's trade gap with the rest of the world unexpectedly widened during January to £7.987BN.
City "experts" had expected a deficit of £7BN.
The unexpected news served to push Sterling lower, which in theory should actually help exports.
It seems, so the story goes, that the poor weather in January was to blame for the deterioration. However, were that to really be the case then imports would have been affected as well. The fact that the gap widened, means that imports were not so seriously affected affected by the weather as exports.
I suspect the real reason is that we can't export things if we don't make them.....Our industry are handicapped by a mountain of rules, regulations and legislation....We will never be able to be competitive until we cut the aforementioned crap down to sensible levels....Many companies now employ special compliance officers whose role is to receive the monthly update from Nanny and see if they're complying with the latest goalpost movements and, if not, what needs to be done, usually at high cost, to comply....The tail is wagging the dog!!!
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