December 24th
'The government's official forecasters, the Office of Budget Responsibility, said the latest actual data were consistent with its forecasts from five years ago that the "trade intensity" of the UK economy could fall by 15% over a decade and a half.
The UK's key export markets are less reliant on UK goods, and the UK is less reliant on foreign goods. This is at a time when trade elsewhere in the world boomed, recovering all the losses and more in the pandemic slump.
From Jan-October 2021 there was $627bn in two-way trade between the US and the European Union, up from $532bn in the same months in 2020, a bounce back of 18%.
China-EU two way trade in the first 10 months of 2021 was €558bn compared to €479bn in 2020, a bounce back of 17%.
The equivalent figure for the UK's two way trade with the EU is 2% growth or £308bn versus £302bn.
In other words, UK-EU trade has in this first year of the post Brexit trade deal, failed to rebound unlike most of the rest of world trade.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59761292