10:51am Wednesday 10th March 2010
By Gareth Lewis
UK exports took their biggest plunge in more than three years during January, underlining the tough road to recovery faced by Southamp-ton docks.
The trade figures showed the worst monthly slump in exports since July 2006 – a £1.4 billion or 6.9 per cent fall – thwarting hopes the nation’s manufacturers would capitalise on a weak pound.
And in worse still news for Southampton, the nation’s export decline far outstripped a 1.6 per cent fall in imports – causing the UK’s goods trade gap with the rest of the world to widen from £7 billion to £8 billion in January.
Statisticians have no data yet on the impact of the cold snap, although experts said snow-bound manufacturers were likely to have struggled to get their goods to ports. One Southampton port business was actually boosted by the freezing weather – the bulks terminal in the docks, which shrugged off the gloom surrounding international trade to record its busiest ever month, thanks to 56,000 tonnes of gritting salt for the UK’s roads passing over the quayside.
Thanks to that delivery and a further 16,000 tonnes of animal feed coming in, the terminal handled more than 100,000 tonnes in February.
Ray Facey, of bulk terminal operators Solent Stevedores, said: “The guys have really put themselves out. Our crane drivers were hot-seating – as soon as one finished a shift another one went in. We had to keep the flow going to make sure we made room on the quay to handle more ships.”
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