§ Mr. Skeetasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the total amount of loans granted under Section 3 of the Export Guarantees Act, 1949, since its inception, with details of the countries both inside and outside the Commonwealth to whom loans have been made and the purposes for which loans have been given in every case, and a list of loans announced or contemplated but not yet made.
§ Mr. BarberThe total amount of loans under Section 3 of the Export Guarantees Act, 1949, as since amended, for which Loan Agreements have been signed is £138.75 million. The total of further Section 3 loans in respect of which announcements have been made but loan agreements have not been signed is £55 million. All these loans are listed in the following table. It would be contrary to policy to give information about other loans which may be contemplated for the future.
Except where otherwise stated in the "remarks" column of the table, these loans have been made available to finance a range of imports from the United Kingdom by the country con- 95W cerned for the development of their economy. Where the loan has been intended from the outset to provide finance for a particular project or the
Country Date of Loan* Agreement Amount of Loan Remarks (£m.) Ceylon … … 2.5 Telecommunications. Chile … … Exchange of Notes dated 21st October, 1960 (Cmnd. 1195) 2.0 Earthquake reconstruction. Cyprus … … 2.0 (up to) Electricity services. Loan would probably be made under Section 3. Ghana … … 5.0 Conditional offer of £5m, towards cost of Volta River project. Loan would probably be made under Section 3. India … … (1) 1st June, 1958 … … 15.0 Durgapur steelworks. (2) 19th December, 1958 … 28.5 (3) 23rd June, 1959 … … 3.0 Assam pipeline. (4) 25th November, 1959 … 19.0 (5) 16th August, 1960 … 10.0 (6) 5.0 (7) 30.0 (8) — Durgapur steelworks extension (Agreed in principle. Amount to be negotiated.) Iran … … (1) 16th February, 1954 … 1.0 To finance purchase of 24 locomotives ordered in 1940. (2) 31st March, 1955 … 10.0 Iraq … … 2nd December, 1949 … 3.0 Malaya … … 17th February, 1960 … … 2.25 Nigeria … … 17th May, 1960 … … 12.0 Pakistan … … (1) 2nd March, 1954 … 10.0 (2) 27th February, 1959 … 10.0 (3) 5.0 To be spent principally on the purchase of jute machinery. Sierra Leone … 3.5 Sudan … … 2nd February, 1959 … … 5.0 Yugoslavia … (1) 26th December, 1949 … 8.0 (2) 28th December, 1950 … 3.0 (3) 11th January, 1951 … 2.0 (4) 10th May, 1951 … … 4.0 (5) 3rd February, 1959 … 3.0 * In cases where no entry is made in this column, this indicates that the United Kingdom Government has announced its willingness to make the loan but that the loan agreement has not yet been signed.