Despite some of the goals set by the Construction Leadership Council in Construction 2025, one of them has not been met: improving Britain’s building products sector.
By 2025, Construction 2025 intends to reduce by 50% the building materials balance of trade deficit, which was at £6 billion in 2013.
However, the deficit grew to £10.4bn by 2019 instead of shrinking.
Covid helped narrow the deficit to £9.0bn in 2020 – but by 2021, it reached £13.2bn, its highest ever level.
Building materials were imported worth £20.5 billion and exported £7.3 billion in 2021.
The UK imported more construction products and materials in the first quarter of 2022 than they were exported. [Source here.]
In the apparent attempt to get the annual deficit down to £3bn in three years – the Construction Leadership Council, which was explicitly established to implement the strategy set out in Construction 2025, seems to be speculating that no one else will pay much attention to products and materials as it emphasises the UK’s long-standing success in exporting services instead.
