HC Deb 23 November 1979 vol 974 cc377-9W
Mr. Austin Mitchell

asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will circulate in the Official Report a table

March 1973. All duties in this range were reduced by 20 per cent. on 1 April 1973 in accordance with article 32 of the Act of Accession, and again on 1 January of each of the years 1974, 1975 and 1976. The last duties were removed on 1 July 1977.

showing the terms of trade and relative volume of imports and exports of machinery for each year from 1970, for each quarter from the beginning of 1976 and for October; and to what factors he attributes the deterioration of the United Kingdom's trading position.

Mr. Eyre

The information requested is given in the table below. Figures of relative volume have been affected in the first half of the year by the road haulage dispute and, more recently, particularly in October, by the disputes in the engineering industry.

The deterioration evident in the figures of relative volume owes much to the United Kingdom having a somewhat stronger underlying trend growth for imports than exists in other countries, probably resulting from weaknesses in non-price factors and industrial performance generally, aspects which have also affected our export performance.

UNITED KINGDOM TRADE IN MACHINERY*
OTS basis 1975=100
Relative volume Terms of trade
1970 119 96
1971 124 98
1972 96 102
1973 84 94
1974 82 99
1975 100 100
1976 95 96
1977 87 103
1978 74 111
1976—
1st quarter 105 99
2nd quarter 97 96
3rd quarter 91 96
4th quarter 89 96
1977—
1st quarter 85 100
2nd quarter 88 102
3rd quarter 87 104
4th quarter 89 106
1978—
1st quarter 78 109
2nd quarter 75 109
3rd quarter 74 112
4th quarter 71 113
1979—
1st quarter 59 114
2nd quarter 67 117
3rd quarter 63 121
October 53 121
* SITC (Rev 2) divisions 1971 to 1977.
† Export volume index (fob) as a percentage of the import volume index (cif); seasonally adjusted.
‡ Export unit value index (fob) as a percentage of the import unit value index (cif); not seasonally adjusted.

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