PRODUCTION DRIVE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 38, 16 October 1946, Page 7

PRODUCTION DRIVE

BIG INCREASE IN RATE OF PROGRESS

Last July the total number employed in British industry increased by 96,000. Employment on goods for the home market rose to mid--1939 level, while employment on goods for export increased by a further 27,000 to 1,323,000 (the mid--1939 figure was 930,000).

These facts are contained in the September issue of the Monthly Digest of Statistics published in London on October 2.

This digest, compiled by the Central Statistical Office, covers every aspect of British production and thus gives a detailed survey of the rate of progress in the national postwar drive.

It shows, for example, that the average weekly production of coal during August was just over 3,000,000 tons, or 500,00-0 tons a week more than in August, 1945, when V-J holidays slowed down production. Passenger car production last August was 20,076, compared with 16,269 in July, while the number of commercial vehicles built rose from 10,420 to 11,115. Over 9,000 passenger cars and approximately 3,800 of the commercial vehicles produced will go overseas.

The tables show an increase since the end of the war in production of various classes of machinery, and also in the proportions scheduled for export. A total of 12,288 internal combustion engines, for instance, were built during July, of which 2,808 were sent overseas. Comparative figures for August, 1945, are 4,709 and 1,030. In June, 2,817 typewriters were built. Of these 1,169 were exported, compared with an average of only 327 in the fourth quarter of 1945. Tractors numbering 11,140 were built during the second quarter of 1945. . The prices of these and other British exports are, of course, much higher than in pre-war. Nevertheless, they have risen less steeply than the prices at which Britain is paying for her imports. Taking the 1938 figure at 100, statistics show a price index of 208 for total imports during July. The index number for Britain’s total exports was 200.