German exports to UK surge amid gold rally, leaving U.S. behind

By Rene Wagner

BERLIN (Reuters) – German exports to Britain are rising quicker than to every other nation among the many Group of Twenty (G20) nations attributable to an ongoing gold rally, in keeping with preliminary information from the German statistics workplace seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Exports to Britain elevated to round 67.6 billion euros ($70.93 billion) between January and October, rising by 5.3% yr on yr, the information confirmed. By comparability, German exports total shrank by 1.2% on this interval.

Even the booming United States couldn’t sustain with robust demand from Britain. German exports to the U.S. elevated by 2.4%, not even half as a lot, information from the statistics workplace confirmed.

“The set off for the robust progress is the brisk gold commerce this yr,” stated Marc Lehnfeld, director of the federal financial growth company Germany Commerce and Make investments (GTAI) in London.

In keeping with the statistics workplace, these elevated greater than threefold to only beneath 5 billion euros between January and September.

“Outdoors of the gold rally, German-British commerce in 2024 is relatively sluggish,” stated Lehnfeld, including that this was partly attributable to a 2.5% drop in German automotive exports to Britain.

Nonetheless, a number of sectors did see their exports to Britain enhance, together with prescription drugs (10%), meals (5.2%) and equipment (3.3%).

“One motive for the rise is the normalisation of German-British commerce after the pandemic and Brexit,” stated Ulrich Hoppe, managing director of the German-British Chamber of Business and Commerce AHK.

($1 = 0.9530 euros)