UK needs to improve global export performance, says British Chamber of Commerce

LONDON

The UK “needs quickly” to step up and catch up with its international partners on export performance, a British Chambers of Commerce official said on Friday.

“It is a key element in increasing the economic growth that politicians and businesses alike are desperately seeking,” William Bain, director of trade policy at the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC), said in a statement following the UK GDP growth announcement. .

Referring to the 3.9% drop in momentum for the country’s services exports in the second quarter, Bain said this “unfortunately” also came on top of a further drop in UK goods exports to the EU market. EU.

“What is really needed now is a greater effort to give more consistency to our export performance,” he added.

The British economy experienced growth of 0.2% in the second quarter of the year, exceeding economists’ expectations of zero growth, according to official figures published on Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

“This is good news,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said of today’s figure, adding that there is still work to be done, “but today’s figures show that the plan is working.”

“We are laying the foundation for a strong economy, and once we bring inflation down we will see the fruits of that,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Citing the IMF, he said the UK will grow faster than France, Germany and Italy in the coming years.

But shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, said GDP figures showed growth in the economy was “still on the ground.”

“Thirteen years of Conservative economic mismanagement has left Britain worse off and locked in a cycle of low growth and high taxes,” said Reeves, a Labor MP for Leeds West.

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