HC Deb 20 March 1974 vol 870 cc124-5W
Mr. Biffen

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current official sterling exchange rate in units of account for the purposes of EEC transactions; and what new arrangements were made when Italy floated the lira for differential exchange rates according to commodity.

Mr. Dell

There are a number of units of account in use in the Communities, of which the two most important are the budgetary unit of account and the unit of account used for agricultural purposes. The conversion rate used for the budgetary unit is £1 equals 2.4 units of account and for the agricultural unit £1 equals 2.1644 units of account. On the second part of the Question, in order to increase prices on its domestic market for agricultural products, Italy has increased the agricultural conversion rate referred to above, in terms of lira. But special temporary adjustments to the support prices have been used to phase the impact of the change on the Italian market. When all products have moved to their new marketing year, all the elements of differential pricing between products will have been eliminated.

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