Yorkshire has seen the biggest rise in exports to China out of any region in the UK, fuelled by surging petroleum exports, according to new analysis.

While exports to China fell across most regions of the UK in the second quarter of the year, Yorkshire and the Humber saw goods exports increase 41 per cent year-on-year – the biggest rise in the country, driven by a 680 per cent rise in petroleum exports.

The report from the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) also highlighted the successes that companies like Leeds-based jukebox maker Sound Leisure and Leeds-based health tech company TPP have had in the Chinese market.

Sound Leisure has almost doubled the production of its hand-built jukeboxes since returning from lockdown andn has found a growing market in China. Roughly 15 per cent of its sales now come from China and that proportion is growing rapidly, with sales surging during the run-up to Chinese New Year.

Chris Black, managing director of Sound Leisure in Leeds, which has found a growing market for its products in China. Picture Bruce Rollinson

Meanwhile, China is one of TPP’s fastest-growing international markets. The company is currently working on a £1m project, deploying its software to the Chinese city of Xi’an.

In April, Chinese exports and imports valued in US dollars grew only 2.1 per cent year-on-year, the slowest increase since the height of the pandemic in June 2020.

Figures show significant year-on-year increases in UK export values for medicinal & pharmaceutical products, professional, scientific & controlling instruments and manufactures of metal, which all performed better year-on-year in the second quarter of 2022.

The report comes as the spotlight once again turns on UK-China relations, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently using his speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet to outline his vision for foreign policy, saying he would focus on “standing up to our competitors, not with grand rhetoric but with robust pragmatism.” The UK would be “stronger in defending our values”, he said, while avoiding “simplistic Cold War rhetoric”.

The day before, Minister for the Indo-Pacific Anne-Marie Trevelyan told Australia’s National Press Club, “We cannot afford to do anything other than focus on this region…In short, this region is critical to the UK - to our economy, our security and to the international rules-based system, that both our countries cherish.”

UK goods exports to China have grown 495 per cent over the past 15 years, making China the UK’s third largest goods trading partner.

Despite this, the G7 countries and Australia all export more to China than the UK, according to the CBBC.

Andrew Seaton, CBBC chief executive, said: “Exports are a key to boosting economic growth and to levelling up, so it’s encouraging to see such a strong rebound in exports to China from Yorkshire and the Humber, which is outperforming the rest of the UK by a considerable margin.

“Whether it’s exporting tea, textiles or jukeboxes, Yorkshire businesses are tapping into that huge and growing middle-class consumer market in China, which sees ‘made in the UK’ as a mark of quality.”

The CBBC report comes as a new suvey published today by Make UK and business advisory firm BDO, found that manufacturers in Yorkshire & Humber are looking at a tough 12 months ahead.

It warned that the sector likely to contract in the face of a deteriorating economic outlook at home and abroad.

The forecast shows manufacturing contracting by -3.2 per cent in 2023. This comes on the back of a forecast -4.4 per cent contraction for this year.

Yorkshire sees biggest rise in exports to China out of any UK region