1.3 Scotland's export performance
Scotland’s international exports(5), excluding oil and gas, have grown at an annualised rate of 3.1% since 2002. Since 2007 that rate has increased to 4.7% compared to a UK rate of 4.4%.
Source: Export Statistics Scotland 2017
When considering exports as a % of GDP and against the performance of our international competitors, however, Scotland’s performance is not so encouraging.
Source: World Bank and Quarterly National Accounts Scotland
The chart above shows that Scotland has considerable potential to increase exports as a percentage of GDP to match the performance of other medium sized economies. Even including trade with the rest of the UK (rUK,) Scotland still lags behind many comparable nations on this key measure. Scotland lags all countries in this comparison when trade with rUK is excluded.
Scotland’s performance on this key measure has been broadly flat over the past 20 years. The growth in the value of Scotland’s exports has simply been keeping pace with growth in the economy as a whole.
Source: World Bank and Quarterly National Accounts Scotland
There is no doubt that Scotland’s economy has the potential to internationalise and match the performance of other comparable nations. Scotland’s inherent strengths in a number of sectors underpin this potential. This plan for export growth sets out to understand what needs to be done to enable this performance improvement and maps out the actions required to deliver it.
References:
(5) Export Statistics Scotland. Excludes Oil and Gas from the UK continental shelf