§ Mr. Gouldasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether he will publish in the Official Report the evidence he has of changes in the profitability of exports in each year since 1970;
(2) what is the average rate of profit on export sales.
§ Mr. Denzil DaviesI regret that it is not possible to estimate, in any satisfactory way, the absolute level of profitability on export sales. A useful indicator of relative profitability is the ratio of manufactured goods' export prices to wholesale prices of manufactured goods—excluding food, drink and tobacco—sold on the home market. While these two price indices rose by similar amounts between 1970 and 1975, over the year between the third quarters of 1975 and 1976, export prices rose about 6 per cent. faster than domestic wholesale prices888W indicating a sharp increase in the relative profitability of export sales.