LONDON, Nov 11 - Britain's goods trade deficit with the rest of the world widened sharply in September to its worst for nearly a year as prolonged maintenance shutdowns in the North Sea hit oil production, official data showed on Tuesday. The Office for National Statistics said the country suffered a global goods trade deficit of 4.8 billion pounds, up from 3.4 billion the month before and much worse than analysts' forecasts for a 3.5 billion pound shortfall. It was the worst figure since last November's all-time high of 5.1 billion pounds. Of the 1.4 billion pound deterioration, 500 million was because of oil, another 300 million due to erratics items like aircraft exports, and a further 200-300 million from higher imports of cars, especially from the European Union.
The country's oil balance swung into deficit, of 63 million pounds, for the first time since August 1991. Normally Britain, with its extensive North Sea oil and gas fields, maintains a healthy surplus in oil trade. The ONS said, however, that the maintenance work had now been completed. It added that the latest estimate showed the trend in the total trade deficit was widening. The goods trade trend was flat with both exports and imports flat. The deficit with the EU widened to 2.2 billion pounds, its highest ever, while the gap with the rest of the world hit 2.6 billion, the worst since last November. The total trade balance, which includes the traditionally surplus in trade in services like banking and insurance, hit a record deficit of 3.9 billion pounds.
The ONS said the ongoing computer problems at Customs & Excise it had previously reported were still affecting the September numbers but should be okay from October.//