asked the Secretary of State for Trade what was the balance of United Kingdom trade with Japan for each of the most recent five years for which figures are available.

Balance-of-trade figures on a balance-of-payments basis are not available for trade with individual countries. Figures on an Overseas Trade Statistics basis of exports fob and imports cif for trade with Japan are published in the Annual Statements of Trade for the Trade Statistics basis—that is, imports valued cif and exports valued fob—can be obtained from the Annual Statements of Overseas Trade of the United Kingdom for the years 1965 to 1972 and from the December volumes of the Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom for 1973 and 1974.Prior to 1970 the export figures do not include re-exports, which therefore have to be added to the export statistics to obtain comparability with the data for 1970 and subsequent years.