UK's Construction Machinery Trade Surplus Narrows Again

The good news is that Brexit does not appear to impeding the flow of construction machinery into and out of the UK too much; the bad news is that the UK’s trade surplus is narrowing.

 

The UK continues to export more construction equipment (excluding cranes) than it imports but the gap is narrowing.

 

After a growth spurt in the fourth quarter, 2022 exports of UK construction and earthmoving equipment reached a value of £4,012m, up 16% on 2021’s £3,442m.

 

However, the value of imports was up by 30% in 2022 to £2,715m (2021: £2,092m), giving a £1,297m positive balance of trade in 2022 (or 47%) compared to £1,350m (64%) in 2021.

 

In 2020, construction machinery exports were more than double the imports, by value.

 

In the fourth quarter of 2022, exports of construction and earthmoving equipment recorded the highest quarterly level of trade since at least 2013 (when the Construction Equipment Association’ s current monitoring service began), in both monetary value and tonnage shipped terms.

 

For 2022 overall, imports of equipment were at the highest levels recorded since 2013.

 

The value of construction machinery exports in Q4 was £1,228m, up 38% increase on Q3.

 

The rise in value of exports and imports can largely be attributed to rising prices since the weight of imports in Q4 2022 was down 10% on Q3 levels to 97,000 tonnes.  Exchanges rates may also have softened the balance of trade.

 

However, the tonnage shipped data illustrates that that the underlying level of export trade was robust last year. In Q4, exports weighed 205,000 tonnes, an increase of 19% on Q3 levels. For 2022 in total, exports weight 687,000 tonnes, which was close to the high levels seen in 2018 and 2019.

 

The share of total UK exports to EU markets fell to 44% in 2022, after peaking at 50% in 2020.