asked the President of the Board of Trade when the Trade and Navigation Accounts and the Overseas Trade Accounts will be published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

The Overseas Trade Accounts (which replaced the Trade and Navigation Accounts last year) are being published on the twenty-first working day following the end of the month. From July onward they will be published on the nineteenth working day.

Will the Minister of State take care to ensure that the Accounts deal specifically with the contrast between British and Japanese productivity and overseas trade growth and freight facilities?

I am not sure to what extent that point is covered in the Accounts, but I will look at it.

When the Accounts are published, will they not show that the average trade deficit for the first four months of this year, which is within the knowledge of the hon. Gentleman, has been considerably worse than the average for the comparable period of the first four months of last year?

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the figures have appeared today, and he will see that, successfully, the trade gap is still being cut.