Yorkshire and the Humber SME exporters report oversea sales decline

SMEs based in Yorkshire and the Humberside are selling less of their goods and services overseas, but expect foreign revenues to grow as they become more competitive during the first half of 2016, according to the latest Business in Britain report from Lloyds Bank.

The report found that the proportion of Yorkshire and Humberside businesses that export has remained stable in the last six months at 34%, but those that export now make 36% of their sales overseas, down from 43% mid-way through 2015.

The findings come during Exporting is Great Week, a UKTI initiative to support new exporters.

While 38% grew their exports in second half of 2015, 21% maintained their level of overseas sales and 41% saw them fall.

However, a net balance of around one fifth (28%) of exporters expect to grow their overseas sales during the first half of 2016.

But this did represented a fall of 20 points compared with the first half of 2015, although 28% of exporters still expected their ability to compete in international markets to improve in the next six months, compared with just 10% who think it will deteriorate.

Leigh Taylor, area director for the North East, SME Banking at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said: “As weakening growth in China and the Eurozone creates headwinds for some exporters, it’s unsurprising to see that less of Yorkshire and Humberside’s SME exporters are generating their sales overseas, but encouraging to see that some businesses are still looking to grow those international sales in the year ahead.

“Starting or scaling-up export activity can be a daunting prospect for businesses, but the benefits are many and we are working hard to support firms in Yorkshire and Humberside’s export ambitions.”

The Business in Britain report gathers the views of 1,500 UK companies, predominantly small to medium sized businesses, tracking opinion on a range of important performance and confidence measures.

Leigh Taylor added: “Despite some negative headlines, there are clearly still opportunities for British exporters to prosper. Our teams of locally-based relationship managers can provide the kind of insight, support and introductions that can be invaluable to firms setting out on their export journey.

“To that end we were the first British bank to form a strategic partnership with UKTI to provide advice and intelligence to our customers, and have committed to help 25,000 exporters by 2020 in our SME Charter.”