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Uk and Its Trade Patterns

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1.0 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of the Report For the purpose of conducting this report the nation that has been chosen is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as UK).The main purpose of this report is to analyse UK’s trade patterns over a forty year timeline and to identify the major ups and downs via linking to domestic economic policies or perhaps international events or either any significant circumstances that are relevant. 1.2 Background Information 1.2.1 The United Kingdom (UK) UK is structured with England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. UK has a significant role in the European Union (EU), UN and NATO with major hands in international affairs throughout the globe. The current head of …show more content…

* As mentioned above, although in 1977 U.K did reduce its tariffs by 20% it still managed to attain a positive trade balance by increasing its exports (see table 2).The new British government(Callaghan’s government)made extensive changes to the framework of British economic policy, both internal and external. Fore.g. in the late 1970s British government increased wages (which caused further inflationary pressures) which caused the depreciation of Sterling and this in turn improved the export competitiveness(Muellbauer & Murphy,1990).This is true, since it can be observed that in 1977-80 U.K had positive net exports (see table 2). * Callaghan government also initiated “pay restraint”; a method to deal with long-term economic difficulties, later on. While it was successfully implemented for four years and also improved the balance of trade during these years, the trade unions rejected further implementation on this idea and made his government to collapse (Clarke, 2002& see also appendix 4.0). This caused Margaret Thatcher to win the general election in 1979 (Google, 2012, 2). Table 1 Exports of goods and services (% of GDP) - Imports of goods and services (% of GDP) = Net exports (% of GDP) 1970-1980 YEAR | Exports of goods and services (% of GDP) | Imports of goods

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