SCOTLAND was the only part of the UK to achieve an improvement in its international trade performance during the third quarter, a survey by British Chambers of Commerce reveals.

According to the survey, published in conjunction with parcel delivery and freight company DHL, Scotland saw a 2.15 per cent quarter-on-quarter rise its export performance.

This contrasted with respective declines of 7.79 per cent and 13.31 per cent for London and Wales, with Scotland the only one of 12 nations and regions of the UK to see an improvement.

The survey is good news for Scotland, given the importance of export activity at a time when conditions in the domestic UK economy remain challenging.

Meanwhile, a survey published yesterday by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and financial information company Markit showed that growth in the UK manufacturing sector accelerated sharply in October.

The survey from CIPS comes as something of a relief, given that it follows a raft of weak indicators of UK manufacturing sector activity.

CIPS’s purchasing managers’ index for the UK manufacturing sector, a composite measure of activity which takes in output, new orders, employment, suppliers’ delivery times and stocks of goods purchased, rose from 51.8 in September to 55.5 in October on a seasonally-adjusted basis. This took it significantly above the level of 50 deemed to separate expansion from contraction.