The UK's trade position with the rest of the world improved marginally at the start of the year, thanks to a narrower deficit with EU nations which offset a wider shortfall with the rest of the world, official figures showed today. The office for National Statistics revealed that the trade in goods deficit in January narrowed to 5.73 bln stg from 6.1 bln stg the previous month. The latest figure is the narrowest since October when a deficit of 5.1 bln stg was recorded. Analysts had predicted a bigger gap of 6.0 bln stg. The shortfall with EU countries was at 2.05 bln stg in January, from 2.87 bln stg in December. The gap is the narrowest since May 2003 due to higher oil exports and lower imports of capital goods. The non-EU deficit, meanwhile, widened to 3.7 bln stg from 3.2 bln stg in Dec. Analysts had predicted the gap to shrink to 3.0 bln stg. The gap is the widest on record. Exports of consumer goods and aircraft fell while oil imports from non-EU countries rose by 0.6 bln stg, NS said. Total exports in January rose 0.6 pct from the previous month to 18.8 bln stg while imports slipped 1.1 pct to 24.5 bln stg. The oil account slipped back into deficit in January, to 124 mln stg from a surplus of 228 mln stg in December. Turning to the UK's trade in services, NS said there was a surplus of 1.95 bln stg in January, down from 2.27 bln in December. The resulting trade in goods and services deficit narrowed to 3.78 bln stg in January from 3.84 bln stg in December. Finally, the statistics office said the latest trend suggests that both the UK trade in goods and the trade in goods and services deficits are fairly flat in recent months. Global Insight analyst Howard Archer said the improvement in trade with the euro zone gave much reason for cheer, although this was countered by the deterioration in trade with non-EU countries.