BERLIN (Reuters) -German exports to Britain this year could grow for the first time since 2015, statistics office data showed, but the DIHK business association said the numbers did not mark a turn for the better, especially in light of Britain’s current turbulence.
From January to August, German companies sold goods worth 48 billion euros ($47.37 billion) to Britain, an increase of about 11.4% compared with the same period in 2021, showed data made available to Reuters.
If this upward trend continues through the end of the year, 2022 would mark the first increase, after six consecutive years of shrinking exports, since the British referendum on whether to leave the European Union.
However, the DIHK chambers of industry and commerce said the positive development was no reason to celebrate as Brexit and turmoil in the British pound were making business difficult.
“This is anything but a turnaround in German-British trade for the better,” DIHK’s head of foreign trade, Volker Treier, told Reuters on Wednesday.
He said the rise in exports was just a sign of the hugely piled-up costs that companies are trying to pass on.
“On the contrary, Brexit continues to create planning and legal uncertainty for internationally active German companies,” Treier said, adding that when it comes to the British market, the outlook for the German economy continues to remain bleak.
Added to that is the latest confusion in the capital markets and economy overall triggered by stimulus and tax packages that were announced and then partly withdrawn, Treier said.
“The associated exchange rate fluctuations are adding to the uncertainties in U.K.-German business relations,” Treier said.
($1 = 1.0133 euros)
(Reporting by Rene Wagner, Writing by Miranda Murray, editing by Ed Osmond)
