Scotland's International Goods Trade: Quarter 3 2023

This report contains trade in goods data from the latest release of HMRC's Regional Trade Statistics (RTS), which relate to international trade in goods only, including oil and gas. The figures exclude trade in services and movement of goods within the UK. This data is quarterly and covers up to the period ending September 2023. The data covers the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and trade following European Union (EU) Exit. These are the provisional estimates and may be revised in future. 

Data is presented in current prices, which means that it also includes the effects of inflation. Caution should therefore be applied when comparing values of exports over recent years, as changes may be due to inflation rather than changes in the volume of exports. Comparing trends with other regions of the UK is not subject to these caveats as they are likely to have experienced similar inflationary effects. 

A portion of these statistics are presented without oil and gas (by excluding Standard Industrial Trade Classification (SITC) divisions 33 and 34) due to high volatility in the data. Additionally, for Scotland, oil and gas account for a large proportion of goods exports. 

HMRC have implemented two changes in the data sources and data collection methods for UK trade with the EU since 2021 which can be found in the RTS methodology note. These methodological changes create breaks in the time series from January 2021 for EU exports and for January 2022 for EU imports, so users should take care when making comparisons with quarters and years prior to 2021 for exports and prior to 2022 for imports. 

If you have any comments or feedback, please email exports.statistics@gov.scot.