§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Minister of Technology what steps he has taken to bring more nearly into line the statistics provided by the Board of Trade and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise in the Monthly Statistical Summary on the one hand, and by the Machine Tool Trades Association on the other, especially in respect of the imput of export orders; and why there was a considerable discrepancy between these statistics at the end of December, 1966.
§ Mr. BennFigures for new export orders and export deliveries are obtained from returns submitted by manufacturers to the Ministry of Technology; those for actual exports are based on the declarations made to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise by exporters or their agents. The correspondence between actual exports and goods reported by manufacturers as
4WAnnual Reports and Accounts of the Board, is below:
delivered for export cannot be exact because of such factors as differences in valuation and timing and the extent to which goods may be exported by agents. There are arrangements to ensure comparability between detailed machine tool headings used for trade and production statistics.