§ Mr. Gouldasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was, in each year since 1953, the level of United Kingdom investment overseas.
§ Mr. RidleyDetails of the level of United Kingdom imvestment overseas, that is, the stock of assets at a given date, are published annually in table 11.1 of "United Kingdom Balance of Payments" — the Pink Book —which is available in the House Library.
Details of the flows of such investment—that is, the net new investment in a given period—are given in table 8.2 of the same publication, updated in table 10 of the quarterly balance of payments articles in Economic Trends; data for some earlier years are published in Economic Trends annual supplement. The available figures cover United Kingdom investments overseas by the private sector and direct investment by public corporations and are as follows:
372W
Level of investment at end of year Net investment during year (increase in United Kingdom assets shown negative) £ million 1953 n.a. -173 1954 n.a. -238 1955 n.a. -182 1956 n.a. -258 1957 n.a. -298 1958 n.a. -310 1959 n.a. -303 1960 n.a. -322 1961 n.a. -313 1962 n.a. -242 1963 n.a. -320 1964 n.a. -409 1965 n.a. -359 1966 9,920 -305 1967 12,150 -462 1968 13,950 -730 1969 13,950 -693 1970 14,400 -829 1971 15,180 -860 1972 19,170 -1,402 1973 19,500 -1,760 1974 19,931 -1,148 1975 24,322 -1,367 1976 30,421 -2,269 1977 30,604 -2,334 1978 35,166 -4,604 1979 40,811 -6,544 1980 49,863 -8,143 1981 64,780 -10,593 1982 n.a. -9,681 Notes: There are a mumber of breaks in component series within the totals shown. n.a.: not available.
The end-1982 level of investment will be published in this year's Pink Book in early September.