UK need to reverse record trade deficit for longer term sustainability

While UK's service sector remains strong and envy for countries around world, its worsening goods trade balance remains Achilles Heel for pound.

Today, office of National Statistics (ONS) released trade balance details for March.

• The deficit of trade in goods and services for March 2015 narrowed to £2.8 billion, from £3.3 billion in the previous month. This improvement was partially due to lower imports. Exports increased by £0.3 billion to £41.9 billion and imports decreased by £0.2 billion to £44.7 billion.

• The deficit on trade in goods narrowed but still close to record at £10.1 billion in March 2015, up by £0.7 billion from February 2015. Imports decreased by £0.4 billion over the same period.

• One piece of good news is UK's deficit with the EU, narrowed by £0.6 billion. This was the largest narrowing since March 2014. Still overall deficit with European partners remain at record low.

Conservative party which is set to rule UK for another 5 years as predicted by election result need to tackle this issue for longer term sustainability.

Worsening trade balance would also keep officials at bank of England cautious over policy adjustment to not to let pound over appreciate due to monetary policy tightening.

Pound is trading at 1.544 against dollar.