It’s official!  The UK economy has at long last, exited recession and returned to growth…just.

Now your first instinct might be to quip, as I did, “Yes but the economy only grew by a paltry amount, didn’t it?” Yes, this is true.

Although it wasn’t quite this bad, it didn’t grow by much more, either (0.1% in fact).

About time too! The UK economy is the last of the G20 nations to exit recession

I’ve been immersed in the news since this was announced, and I can’t help but think that, while some are predicting another slip back into negative growth and others are getting a little carried away, we’re still missing the point – exporting.

As someone who has successfully taken a business to other shores, I can testify to the stability exporting can bring and to the endless growth opportunities it presents.

Since the recession hit and in light of the news this week, I think it is unbelievable that the government hasn’t been promoting exporting as though the country’s future depends on it, because in my opinion it does. Clearly.

In short, exporting is a simple way to navigate the economy well clear of recession – and almost any company can do it.

Now, I don’t mean to come across a bit Rafa Benitez, but let’s look at a few facts…

1) All is not as it seems: Our “recovery” was aided by the Government backed car-scrappage scheme. It was a well thought out mechanism to encourage spending (and lending, if you were deemed worthy enough to qualify) within the automotive industry and it has proven to be very popular with the Great British punter.

So, good in principle and in practice, which makes it well worth pointing out, but not for reasons you might think. There is one glaring omission from the much-lauded exploits of the scheme – we don’t actually make the cars we’re selling anymore.

This begs the question “where has all this money we’ve been spending actually gone?” The answer is “overseas”.

You wouldn’t run a household, or indeed a business by spending more than you earn.

It is the same basic principle with import and export – our trade deficit cannot sustain our economy based on lending.

2) The Double Dip: There is still “a lot of uncertainty” about what our triumphant 0.1% means in the long-term. According to some sources, we may find ourselves back in recession again before the end of the year.

Double-dip recession: Not this nice!

If that happens, it will present new challenges that exporting could help to solve – provided companies are given adequate support to boost UK exports, that is.

I believe Government should be incentivising companies to export more than they are now, by introducing reduced sales tax on revenues generated through exporting.

Just think of how many companies might just try exporting for the first time if we introduced something like that.

3) To state the obvious: Germany and China are the league leaders in the global economic recovery. We are one of the last and only scraped our way out of recession on a technicality.

In fact, China actually never entered recession – please bear that in mind as you read on.

What a strange coincidence that China, followed by Germany, now leads the world in exporting.

Actually, it is no coincidence.  Exporting is something that the UK has been lacking for far too long and is the single reason that we are the last of the G20 countries to emerge from recession – something this article seems to have missed altogether.

To summarise:

It has been said by the Prime Minister, that our economic contingency plans are “leading the rest of the world in taking us out of recession.” This, while offering no practical support for SMEs, the “lifeblood” of our economy, to do the dirty work of pulling us out of the mire.

However, when you see the economies of other G20 nations soaring compared to ours, actually we’re not leading anyone out of anything, Mr Brown.