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5.4 Trade specialisation in knowledge based industries

Why is it significant?

Our future success depends on competing on quality and know-how, rather than cost alone, so an assessment of trade performance in selected sectors is one way to judge whether the UK has a comparative advantage in knowledge intensive activities.

How does the UK perform?

For the last 20 years, the UK has experienced an upward trend in the share of exports in knowledge based goods. Twenty  per cent of all its exports being accounted for by knowledge based goods (5.4.1).

The UK’s performance in terms of knowledge based services is equally impressive with over 50% of UK exports in the service sector being classified as knowledge intensive, higher than for any of our major competitors (5.4.2).


Last updated on 29 October 2002