Miss CAZALETasked the President of the Board of Trade why Government payments and receipts on loan account are included in the official calculations of the annual balance of payments; and whether he will arrange to base the calculations upon payments and recepits for goods, services, interest and other current trading items, as distinguished from capital items?
§ Mr. RUNCIMANIn. preparing the annual estimates of the balance of payments, it has been found impossible in the past to make any satisfactory division of receipts and payments in respect of inter-Government indebtedness between capital and interest, since the division would depend on assumptions to be made as to the rate of interest and as to the extent to which the capital was written down. It would be undesirable to sacrifice the comparability of the estimates over a period of years by altering the practice in regard to occasional isolated items.