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Scottish Manufactured Exports
02/04/2008
Scotland's Chief Statistician today announced the release of the Scottish Manufactured Exports Estimates for the Fourth Quarter of 2007. This quarterly publication measures growth, in real terms, of overseas exports by manufacturing companies located in Scotland.
The main findings are:
- Scottish manufactured export sales decreased by 2.0 per cent in real terms in the last quarter of 2007 and grew by 3.0 per cent over the year 2007, according to estimates published today by the Scottish Government.
- Over the quarter, the main industry contributing to the decrease in manufactured export sales was drink which fell by 8.1 per cent over the latest quarter. All three subsectors within engineering showed quarterly reductions in export sales with Electrical & instrument engineering (-2.2 per cent) and mechanical engineering (-8.7 per cent) contributing most to the overall fall in engineering exports of 3.6 per cent. Chemicals and refined petroleum grew by 12.4 per cent over the last quarter of 2007 and growth was also seen in other manufacturing (+6.8 per cent), food and tobacco (+3.2 per cent) and wood, paper, publishing and printing (+2.1 per cent).
- Over the year, engineering and drink were the main industries contributing to the annual growth in manufactured export sales with annual growth of 3.5 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively. Wood, paper, publishing and printing (+23.8 per cent) and metals & metal products (+11.1 per cent) also showed strong growth over the year. The main industry showing a decline in manufactured export sales in real terms over the year was chemicals, with an annual decline of 5.5 per cent. Electrical & instrument engineering (-1.1 per cent), food and tobacco (-11.8 per cent) and textiles, fur and leather (-1.7 per cent) also fell over the year
Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.