§ Mr. Cabornasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he has as to the number of British trade missions which visited South Africa in each year from 1979; how many such missions received a grant from his Department; what was the average grant per mission in each year; and what was the total cost to his Department in each year.
§ Mr. ChannonThe Department does not keep records of trade missions to South Africa outside the BOTB scheme.
Details of missions which received BOTB financial support for the years specified are as follows:
Year Number of missions Annual value of BOTB subvention (£) 1979 13 60,375 1980 11 57,960 1981 15 113,645 1982 14 92,325 1983 14 127,680 1984 14 127,200 1985 (1st quarter) 4 36,480 The grant to each mission member for the period until 31 March 1981 was £345; from 1 April 1981 to 31 October 1982, £415; from 1 November 1982 to date, £480.
598Wtable B7 of the "Monthly Review of External Trade Statistics"; and if he will account for differences in the actual numbers.
§ Mr. ChannonIn principle the two series are identical apart from the deflator used, which in the UN source is a unit value index and in the United Kingdom source is an average value index. In practice the effect of this is small; most of the difference between the series is due to revisions to export figures which the UN have not incorporated.