The government will miss its target of doubling exports to £1 trillion by 2020 if Britain fails to step up efforts to secure markets in faster-growing emerging economies, an influential group of MPs has warned.
The cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) said the country was lagging behind other major European exporters such as Germany and France, partly because Britain's small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were not receiving adequate help from the government.
The committee, which is chaired by the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, said Britain's recent export performance fell far short of the 10% year-on-year growth required to meet the chancellor's 2020 target. The annual value of British exports has been flat for the last two of years.
Hodge said: "If the UK is to hit this target, then we will not only have to maintain our current market share in advanced markets such as the US and Europe, but also secure new exports to the faster growing emerging markets.
"At present UK SMEs do not perform as well in terms of exporting as their French and German counterparts. UKTI [UK Trade and Investment] needs to be a more effective source of intelligence on new opportunities in overseas markets."
The committee noted that while UKTI, which is tasked with helping UK-based exporters, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had made progress, with £420m spent in 2012-13 on promoting exports, the two government departments had failed to work together effectively and had instead developed separate strategies.
The committee recommended that the UKTI and FCO produced a joint "roadmap" on how to offer more help to British businesses that wanted to export to new markets.
The PAC also suggested the two worked more closely with the Home Office to minimise difficulties experienced by overseas business travellers in obtaining UK visas.
"The FCO and UKTI told us that they are aware of a high level of concern in some countries about the time-consuming process of getting a UK visa," the committee of MPs said in its report.
George Osborne set out his target in 2012 to double British exports within eight years as part of a broader ambition to rebalance the UK economy towards more manufacturing and exports, and away from debt-fuelled spending.
Britain's biggest trading partners have traditionally been Europe and the US, and although exports to newer markets, including China, have been rising over recent years, UKTI has acknowledged further increases in exports to emerging markets would be crucial to achieving the government's ambitions.
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics showed Britain's trade in goods deficit widened to £29.2bn in the three months to November, up from £27.4bn in the three months to August.
