§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how he measures changes in the competitiveness of United Kingdom manufacturing industries and United Kingdom service industries, respectively; and where the relevant statistics are published.
§ Mr. Bruce-GardyneThe most widely-quoted measures of the competitiveness of United Kingdom manufactures relative to our major competitors are the indices of relative unit labour costs compiled by the IMF. Two indices are published, one of which uses actual productivity movements to compute unit labour costs and the other trend productivity to compute normalised unit labour costs. Both indices are published inEconomic Trends (page 46 of June issue), alongside four further indicators of manufacturing competitiveness derived from relative prices or relative profitability. No similar indicators are published for the United Kingdom service industries.