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Balance Of Payments

Volume 886: debated on Friday 21 February 1975

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asked the Secretary of State for Trade what percentage of the United Kingdom's non-oil trade deficit on a balance of payments basis for the year 1974 is accounted for by trade with EFTA, the USA, the USSR, the EEC, Canada and Japan, giving the total as one figure.

Figures of our non-oil trade on a balance of payments basis are available only in aggregate for all countries and, exceptionally, for the EEC. In 1974, on a balance of payments basis the EEC(8) accounted for 110 per cent. of our total non-oil trade deficit.Figures of the balance of trade on an Overseas Trade Statistics basis can be obtained from the recorded figures of imports cif and exports fob but this "crude" trade balance is not a good measure of the balance of trade because,

inter alia, of differences in valuation.

On this basis the percentages of our "crude" non-oil trade deficit accounted for in 1974 by the areas listed in the question were 32, 17, 9, 70, 17 and 9 respectively; in total these areas accounted for 155 per cent. of our total non-oil crude trade deficit.