The UK government, through the Department for International Trade (DIT), produces a series of trade and investment factsheets focused on its trading partners. These factsheets are regularly updated, generally on a monthly basis, with the most recent date of publication 19 August 2021 (with the date of next planned release: 17 September 2021). The documents are available on the UK government website at this link.
Factsheets have been published on the UK’s trade and investment relationships with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa (‘SACU+M). These downloadable documents provide insights to current and potential traders and investors into a range of issues underpinning the bilateral relationship between the UK and its respective partner countries.
These factsheets cover information and a range of quantitative and qualitative data and indicators for the following categories:
- Exports, imports and total trade between the UK and individual SACUM country
- Trade by commodity and service type
- Regional trade in the UK for goods
- UK market share for trading partners
- VAT-registered businesses trading goods
- Foreign direct investment (FDI)
- ‘Ease of doing business’ rankings
- Summary trade and investment data as reported by each partner
- Economic data and projections
The trade data sections provide an overview of trade volumes between the UK and each of the respective partner countries, both in terms of aggregate trade volumes but also on a more sectoral, ranked basis. The reports place trade into the relevant national context for the countries concerned, and also show the countries’ respective share of the UK’s export and import market both in terms of goods and services trade. The relative ranking of a country’s UK and global exports provide an indication of a country’s export competitiveness in key sectors, while showing product categories that the country’s importers are sourcing from the UK.
For a number of variables, the factsheets draw on third party sources including national data, and present these centrally in a readily accessible format. For example, the ‘ease of doing business’ scores (with respect to SACU+M countries) draw on World Bank data: this reviews a country’s regulatory environment based on a number of indicators from the perspective of local firms, ranks this score globally but also shows the year-on-year movement in rank.
Follow the link to the UK Country Factsheet section at this link [https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/trade-and-investment-factsheets ]. These factsheets are regularly updated with new information.
Trade and Investment Factsheets
Botswana
South Africa
Eswatini
Mozambique
Lesotho
Namibia
