COMP6234 Data story

Huaiyi Fang(hf5n21)

How far has the UK's economy and international trade recovered in this post-pandemic era?

Data Visualisation

Two main challenges in post-pandemic era

Covid-19

Covid-19 has been spreading around the world for over two years and this has led to shutdowns, quarantine policies and harsh entry policies whose damage to the economy is evident.

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Brexit

The UK has been in brexit transition period since January 2020 and has left the transition period in December 2020. This has significant implications for the UK's trade with Europe.

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How much of an impact do you think COVID-19 has had on the UK economy and trade?

The comparison of the time series in the graph presents a picture of international trade and economy with Covid-19 in UK. The new cases and new deaths represent to some extent the severity of the epidemic. GDP, CPIH and total trade represent the extent to which the economy and international trade has been affected.

Focus on UK's international trade

The map on the left indicates the total trade of the UK with different countries with a timeline. On the right, a comparison of the UK's exports and imports with different countries over time is shown.

Are different types of goods exported or imported affected in the same way?

The impact of the Covid-19 and brexit is different for different types of goods, so what exactly are the different effects on them?

The impact of Brexit on international trade in UK

The brexit transition period and the initial outbreak of Covid-19 coincided, so they had a significant impact on the UK at the same time. But we can look at comparing the UK's trade with the EU and non-EU to find out.

Conclusion

①The UK economy and trade have not returned to epidemic eve levels as of Q3 2021. GDP and import/export trade in Q3 2021 are relatively close to 2018 levels for the same period.
②The CPIH in 2020 goes lower along with COVID-19 and Brexit, before climbing rapidly.
③The UK trades most closely with Germany, China, the Netherlands, and the USA. Of these, import trade has seen a slight decline in the share of Germany, the UK's long-standing number one importer, after the epidemic and Brexit, and a significant increase in import trade with China. In addition, Norway's import trade climbs very rapidly in 2021. In export trade, the US, the UK's long-standing number one exporter, is the most severely affected, while exports to the Netherlands have been growing over the past two years.
④Mining and quarrying have seen imports increase and exports plummet over the past year. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning and water supply, sewerage and waste management imports and exports have been increasing since the outbreak began. Manufacturing and agriculture, forestry and fishing have been less affected.
⑤Trade with the EU did decline very slightly after the Brexit compared to non-EU. But imports into the EU have been overtaken by non-EU trade.
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