Welsh international goods trade: October 2021 to September 2022

From January 2022, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) implemented a change in data collection methods affecting trade in goods data on imports from the EU into Great Britain. This creates a break in the time series, users should take care when making comparisons with quarters and years prior to 2022 (see notes).

Further explanation of the data collection changes can be found in the HMRC full commentary explanatory notes.

Data for 2021 and 2022 are provisional estimates and will be revised routinely over the next 18 months to account for late returns. 

Year ending September 2022

Exports

The value of goods exports for Wales was £19.5(r) billion, up £5.2 billion (36.6%) compared to the year ending September 2021.

Comparing to the year ending September 2019 (pre-pandemic), goods export values for Wales were up £1.7 billion (9.5%) indicating that goods export values have recovered beyond pre-pandemic levels.

There was an increase in export values to EU countries of £2.7 billion (31.1%) and an increase in export values to non-EU countries of £2.6 billion (44.8%), compared with the previous year. Export values to the EU accounted for 57.5% of Welsh export value compared with 52.0% for the UK.

Export values from Wales continue to be dominated by ‘Machinery and Transport Equipment’ which made up £7.2bn (36.7%) of export values. However, a substantial increase was seen in the export values of Mineral Fuels, up £2.5bn (148.1%) compared with the previous year. Mineral Fuels exports accounted for 21.9% of all exports from Wales.

Power Generating Machinery and Equipment’ was the largest value product within the ‘Machinery and transport Equipment category’ with £2.7bn (14.0%) of Welsh exports. This is an increase of £0.9bn (45.6%) compared with the previous year.

Within the Mineral Fuels category, ‘Petroleum, Petroleum Products and Related Materials’ was the highest value product with £4.2bn (21.4%) of Welsh exports. While this is a value increase of £2.6bn (160.6%) compared with the previous year, the volume exported only increased by 44.1%.

(r) Revised on 22 February 2023

Imports

The value of goods imports for Wales was £22.8 billion in the year ending September 2022, up £7.5 billion (49.3%) compared to the year ending September 2021.

Compared to the year ending September 2019 (pre-pandemic), goods import values to Wales were up £4.4 billion (23.8%) indicating that goods import values have recovered beyond pre-pandemic levels.

There was an increase in import values of goods from both EU countries of £1.5 billion (24.3%) and non-EU countries of £6.0 billion (66.2%), compared with the previous year. Import values from the EU accounted for 33.6% of the total Welsh import value, compared with 48.4% for the UK.

‘Mineral Fuels’ is still the largest import value category at £8.0 billion, accounting for 35.3% of total import values. The second largest category remains as ‘Machinery and Transport Equipment’ with £6.9bn (30.5%) of total imports.

Within the ‘Mineral Fuels’ category, ‘Petroleum, Petroleum Products and Related Materials’ was the highest value product with £6.9bn (30.3%) of Welsh imports. While this is a value increase of £4.3 billion (161.9%) compared with the previous year, the volume imported only increased by 47.8%.

Power Generating Machinery and Equipment’ was the largest value product within the ‘Machinery and transport Equipment category’ with £2.8bn (12.6%) of Welsh exports. This is an increase of £1.3bn (76.6%) compared with the previous year.

Note

Because of changes to the way in which the data is collected, some small value trade that was previously allocated to countries and regions may now be reported under the ‘Unallocated-unknown’ category. This has led to a likely reduction in the UK to EU export values, and total export values for Wales (and other regions) from January 2021 onwards. More detailed notes of these effects can be read in the HMRC full commentary on these statistics.

Some of the data included in this report may get revised by HMRC as part of their routine revisions to the data set. The latest data will be available on UK Trade Info.

Further information

The data above relates to international goods trade. The most recent experimental statistics (for 2020) produced by the Office for National statistics suggest that service exports made up approximately 28% of total exports in Wales in 2020, with services imports making up around 19% of total imports.

Headine results are published quarterly.

If you would like to provide any feedback on any aspect of these statistics, please email stats.trade@gov.wales.