UK Sept trade deficit narrows more than expected

Britain's global goods trade deficit narrowed more than expected in September as exports rose more than imports and the oil trade gap eased to its smallest in more than a year, official data showed on Tuesday.

The Office for National Statistics said Britain's goods trade gap narrowed to 7.482 billion pounds in September from 8.026 billion pounds in August. Economists had forecast a deficit of 8.0 billion pounds.

The goods trade gap with non-EU countries eased to 4.508 billion pounds from 5.236 billion pounds. Analysts had forecast a deficit of 5.0 billion pounds.

The figures may suggest that weaker sterling is boosting demand for British goods overseas and hampering import activity, but the ONS added that the trend in the data over recent months was fairly flat.

"It is probably too early to say that the low level of sterling is boosting exports and clamping down on imports, but that is potentially a trend that is at work here," said Matthew Sharratt, an economist at Bank of America.

However, analysts are also concerned that slowing economic activity across the world will soon begin to take its toll on the trade balance.

The ONS said the trade in oil gap narrowed to 68 million pounds in September from 236 million pounds in August, the smallest deficit since June 2007.

Total exports of goods rose 3 percent to 21.9 billion pounds in September and total imports rose by 0.5 percent to 29.3 billion pounds.

Imports from non-European Union countries actually fell 3 percent in September.

Analysts have been treating Britain's trade data over recent years with caution because of distortions caused by value-added tax fraud, although the ONS said the effects of this fraud had reduced somewhat.