Britain's deficit on trade in goods and services widened to 4.2 billion pounds (about 6.7 billion U.S. dollars) in August, higher than 1.7 billion pounds in the previous month, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday.

According to the official figures, British deficit on trade in goods increased to 9.8 billion pounds in August, up from 7.3 billion pounds in July.

Exports of goods fell by 4.0 percent to 24.6 billion pounds in August, while imports of goods increased by 4.5 percent to 34.5 billion pounds.

Meanwhile, exports of goods to European Union (EU) countries decreased by less 0.5 percent to 12.4 billion pounds, but imports was up 2.4 percent to 17.2 billion pounds.

Exports of goods to non-EU countries dropped by 7.2 percent to 12.3 billion pounds, and imports jumped 6.8 percent to 17.3 billion pounds.

However, the trade in services was in surplus to amount to about 5.7 billion pounds in August. Exports of services were 15.6 billion pounds and imports of services were 9.9 billion pounds, said the ONS. (1 pound = 1.6 U.S. dollars)