There was an article in the Economist early this year about this: www.economist.com/news/britain/2 ... dium-sized

It suggested that when the pound falls, its good news for small firm exporters that tend to manufacture at home and sell abroad, but had less effect on large firm exporters that are likely to have some parts of their operations based overseas close to their customers, so when the pound falls their costs in overseas operations rise.

So when the pound rises it should be the opposite effect: the small firms that manufacture at home will find it harder to export, but the large firm exporters will not be affected as much.

Basically if you are a global firm you are less likely to be affected by currency fluctuations for good or bad.

The danger I see of a rising pound is what will happen to our trade balance. The most recent figures said we have our biggest trade deficit since 1989. A year or so ago the Coalition were always talking about "rebalancing the economy": from imports to exports, from London to the regions, from services to manufacturing, from consumption and government spending to investment etc but this is one thing that is definitely not happening in terms of the recent good news on growth. We are not seeing those rebalancing effects in fact on some of those measures we are becoming more unbalanced.

If the pound rises then its good news for families struggling with flatlining wages and the cost of living but the flipside is the reason its good news is because it means imported goods become cheaper (hence it bearing down on inflation), this means our imports are likely to rise and our trade balance could get even worse. Given that a trade deficit is always financed by accruing debt to the rest of the world, this is not a healthy situation.

There was an article in the Economist early this year about this: www.economist.com/news/britain/2 ... dium-sized

It suggested that when the pound falls, its good news for small firm exporters that tend to manufacture at home and sell abroad, but had less effect on large firm exporters that are likely to have some parts of their operations based overseas close to their customers, so when the pound falls their costs in overseas operations rise.

So when the pound rises it should be the opposite effect: the small firms that manufacture at home will find it harder to export, but the large firm exporters will not be affected as much.

Basically if you are a global firm you are less likely to be affected by currency fluctuations for good or bad.

The danger I see of a rising pound is what will happen to our trade balance. The most recent figures said we have our biggest trade deficit since 1989. A year or so ago the Coalition were always talking about "rebalancing the economy": from imports to exports, from London to the regions, from services to manufacturing, from consumption and government spending to investment etc but this is one thing that is definitely not happening in terms of the recent good news on growth. We are not seeing those rebalancing effects in fact on some of those measures we are becoming more unbalanced.

If the pound rises then its good news for families struggling with flatlining wages and the cost of living but the flipside is the reason its good news is because it means imported goods become cheaper (hence it bearing down on inflation), this means our imports are likely to rise and our trade balance could get even worse. Given that a trade deficit is always financed by accruing debt to the rest of the world, this is not a healthy situation.