The United Kingdom &

Trade Patterns

The Big Picture

We can analyze the trade data of the United Kingdom using SAS's UN Comtrade API. SAS collects millions of lines of data from countries all over the world, and converts it all into a wonderful and informational API plugin that users can use to analyze and observe trade data between countries. This API can be useful to bring new insight into a country's trading patterns, consumption habits, among many other things. For example, the United kingdom is a relatively wealthy country, and as such, we can compare its trading patterns to reflect and such statements. 

Analyzing The Data

Out of all the imports to the United Kingdom, commodities stand out near the top. We can take this data and show that the United Kingdom has established its industrial sector, and is well developed. This means that the country can generate enough GDP to provide its population with the ability to spend their money on commodities. As I stated earlier, the United Kingdom is a well developed country, and as a result, there is a much smaller number of imports relating to industrial expansion. We can compare this data to a developing country like Uganda, and see that commodities imported to Uganda are not even in the top 10 of highest imports for the country, while things such as Electrical equipment and machinery are in the top 5. This small sample of data is one out of a number of things we can use to analyze and observe wether a country is developed or developing.

The United Kingdom's number one import is Mineral fuels, oils, and distillation products. Being a well developed country, we can justify this by looking at its other top imports. For example, the fourth highest import is vehicles other than railway and tramway. These two data points are directly correlated as most vehicles consume mineral fuels. The United Kingdom is also a small island, and imports the majority of the oil it consumes. Another sign of a wealthy country is its export to import ratio. The United Kingdom imports a higher number of goods than it exports, symbolizing a developed and wealthy country that is eager to increase its consumption.

In general, countries that are well developed and have previously been industrialized, tend to focus on exporting more finished products than raw materials. When observing the UN Comtrade data, the same data is reflected. The majority of the United Kingdom's exports are commodities, machinery and vehicles.

Overall, the United Kingdom's trading patterns are relatively consistent with other well developed western countries like the United States and France. They all export a majority of finished products rather than raw materials, and they all consume relatively the same types of imports. 

However, with all of this information taken into account, I expect the export of oil in the United Kingdom to increase in the coming years, as a recent find of an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the south of England. (BBC) It will take time to sort out the logistics, and begin the construction process of the machinery needed to extract the oil, but it will hopefully help the United Kingdom's incredibly high fuel prices.

SAS Comtrade Data

http://www.sas.com/software/visual-analytics/demos/un-comtrade-basic.html

BBC Oil Find

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32229794