glassware

It is estimated that the value of retail sales of glassware and ornamental ware dipped slightly in 2005 (to £355m) in a highly competitive market in which manufacturers, facing oversupply, have had to cut margins and retailers have had to discount. Five rises in the Bank of England's base rate in a year (November 2003 to August 2004) took it to 4.75％, the highest level since 2001. So effective was this in slowing down escalating house prices and consumer spending, that the rate was subsequently reduced by a quarter of a percent in August 2005 — the first change to interest rates since August 2004 — amid fears of a real economic slowdown. The UK, therefore, has a trade deficit in glassware and one that increased slightly from 2003 to 2004, when a fall in the value of imported glassware was insufficient to compensate for a 10.2％ decrease in the value of UK exports of glassware in 2004. China is the leading producer of glassware.