§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the percentage net rate of return of private non-financial corporations was for(a) manufacturing and (b) services for each year between 1993 and 2003. [153554]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Stephen O'Brien, dated 9 February 2004:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning the profitability of UK manufacturing and service companies, in each year since 1993.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) First Release "Profitability of UK companies" shows the annual profitability of manufacturing companies since 1970 and service companies since 1989. Data for 2003 will be published on 31st March. This First Release, giving data up to 2002 is available free of charge from the National Statistics Website and is available in the House of Commons Library. The web address of the latest edition is: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/profit0104.pdf