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Yorkshire & the Humber SME’s third most likely in the UK to explore international trade

Yorkshire and the Humber SME’s are the third most likely to be exploring international trade opportunities, according to a new regional YouGov study released with Citrix.

Surveying 2,019 small firms, the study reported that businesses across the UK are increasingly looking to export with 50% of those surveyed already trading with countries outside of the UK, a number set to increase to 60% by 2016.

On a regional level, London was at the top, with 59% of businesses in the city currently exporting, followed by the South East (47%) and Yorkshire and the Humber (43%).

For Scotland it was reported that 42% of SMEs said they had customers abroad. In the North West this fell to 37%, while the South West (35%), Wales (28%) and the North East (26%) were least likely to export.

Small firms in Yorkshire and the Humber and the East of England were found to be more likely to source products and services from abroad than to sell overseas.

Of the countries regional businesses are choosing to export into, London is “selling everywhere” and was found to be almost twice more likely to sell to China than any other region.

The South West is the second “most prolific region” with 11% of its small firms selling to Russia, 7% selling to China, and 13% selling into Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Andrew Millard, senior director of international marketing, at Citrix said: “As expected London trades the most internationally but other regions are seeing big gains - Yorkshire and Humber and the South East are also leading the way along with the capital when it comes to global exports.

“Emerging markets have an appetite to buy products made in Britain, which shows the importance of continued investment in the UK manufacturing industry.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .