Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value was of exports of UK-manufactured ceramic products in each year since 2019.

This question was answered on 8th June 2023
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is responsible for the collection and publication of data on imports and exports of goods to and from the UK. HMRC releases this information monthly, as a National Statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build your own data tables based upon bespoke search criteria. However, it should be noted that HMRC does not hold data regarding the manufacture of those exported goods.

Classification codes (according to the Harmonised System) are available to assist you in accessing published trade statistics data in the UK Trade Tariff. Goods moving from the UK are identified by an eight-digit commodity code. These are publicly available from the UK Trade Tariff at https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff.

Ceramics can be classified under a number of commodity codes depending on the item produced. The classification codes in chapter 69 are used for ceramic products other than porcelain and china. However, there are other Tariff chapters that may also contain ceramic in them.

The value of ceramics exported from the UK since 2019 is available from the above uktradeinfo website. As referenced above, the online data available does not distinguish where the ceramics are manufactured.

The Office for National Statistics do publish statistics on UK manufacturers’ sales by product (latest available 2021), of which Division 23 SIC(07) 2341 to (07)2349 may be of interest. However, these statistics do not differentiate between domestic and export sales.