HC Deb 09 April 1940 vol 359 c493W
Mr. Parker

asked the Minister of Economic Warfare the volume and value of rubber and tin exported from the Dutch East Indies to Vladivostock since the beginning of the war, compared with the figures for the corresponding pre-war period?

Mr. Cross

Before the outbreak of the war Asiatic Russia was not shown as a country of destination for tin or rubber in the trade returns of the Netherlands East Indies, and it would appear that such exports must have been very small. In the first four months of the war 3,387 metric tons of rubber valued at 1,746,000 gulden and 516 tons of tin valued at 903,000 gulden were exported from the Netherlands East Indies to Asiatic Russia. I may add that during the first four months of the war no rubber was exported from the Netherlands East Indies to ports in European Russia, whereas for 1938 exports of rubber to European Russian ports amounted to 4,800 tons. The exports to Asiatic Russia in the first four months of the war may therefore represent, at least in part, orders which have been diverted from European to Far Eastern ports.