The UK leaving the EU, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, a global recession and resulting supply chain disruptions: the British economy has witnessed a plethora of disruptive events over the past two years. This has led to increased volatility in the country’s trade activities, affecting businesses of all sizes.
According to data gathered by the UK’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), between February 2021 and February 2022 16% of businesses reported disruption to their global supply chain. The percentage was much higher (26%) when firms with fewer than ten employees were excluded.
For companies engaged in international trade, the impact has been drastic, affecting not only their ongoing operations, but also their ability to forecast the future. It’s now vitally important for companies to keep an eye on the larger economic trends in order to assess the demand for their products and services in target markets.
Therefore if you are making any export (or import) plans for the coming financial year, examining the UK’s import and export activities from 2021–2022 could influence the direction your business takes. Use these interactive tools from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to look at the relevant statistics, specific to the commodity and country you trade with:
Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom. By the end of February 2022, the percentage of businesses currently trading rose to 94%, its highest level since comparable estimates began in June 2020 (ONS, 2022).
Also, despite the recent events, the EU is still the largest trading partner for the UK.
Getting support from a professional translation agency
At Surrey Translation Bureau (STB), we understand that changing your current target market or workflow will also require you to draft or update multiple legal, financial and marketing documents. Translation is often a vital part of that process.
Over the past two years, we have supported many of our clients who have had to adopt new approaches to sustain and grow their businesses. In the process, we have also identified new services that our clients might require and widened our offerings to include subtitling, post editing of machine translation, and more.
Get in touch with our friendly team to discuss how our language services can help giving your business a different voice.
Written by Marya Jabeen
