‘Significant growth’ for a quarter of exporters

£26.5bn will be bought to the West Midlands economy through exports according to a study commissioned by Barclays Corporate Banking.

In addition, if manufacturers who don’t currently export, began to, the total would reach £28bn a year by 2030.

The new report, The Export Dividend, reveals that despite supply chain disruptions and challenges from the pandemic, 76% of manufacturing firms with 10 or more employees in the West Midlands are currently exporting and supporting 124,300 jobs.

Richard Craven, manufacturing industry director, Barclays Corporate Banking said: “The British manufacturing sector, like many others, has endured a tough year and around a third of our research respondents have been impacted by higher labour costs, higher material costs and other supply chain issues.

“However, exporters, more than most, have weathered the storms and are enjoying strong demand for their products in markets all around the world. Confidence is high and many firms are looking to exports to fulfil their growth ambitions next year and beyond.”

Food and drink products (£34.3bn in sales per year) are the country’s biggest-selling manufactured product on the global stage, followed by automotive products (£20.9bn).

Exporters are also more likely to have achieved ‘significant growth’ this year (26%) in comparison to non-exporters (18%).

Among those who don’t yet export, there is significant demand to start doing so with over half (58%) in the West Midlands aiming to start selling overseas in 2022. If they do, Barclays’ economic modelling predicts it could be worth an additional £182m to the local economy next year, and an additional £1.5bn per year by 2030.

Non-exporters are more likely to favour European markets, with 30% saying they would target Germany initially, followed by The Netherlands (24%) and the US (24%). In contrast, the US is the market that most current exporters (30%) sell to, followed by Germany (26%) and France (26%).

Economic modelling was conducted by Development Economics Ltd, combining attitudinal survey responses with ONS data sources. The modelling uncovered statistically representative results for each UK manufacturing sub-sector and each UK region.

Barclays Corporate Banking commissioned Censuswide to run a survey of 604 18+ senior managers or above in manufacturing businesses with 10 or more employees, conducted between 11th October and 20th October 2021.