Italy's Textile Trade Recovering From Sanctions

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 14, 9 October 1937, Page 18

Italy's Textile Trade Recovering From Sanctions

ROME — Italy is gradually recovering the export and impOrt trade which she had lost during the period of sanctions. This recovery is particnlarly notoworthy in the textile trade. The economic and statistical department of the Joiht Committee of Cotton Trade O- ganizations has recently issued some figu,J3 of Itaiian foreign trade in cotton and xayon which show how much imports and exports fell during the period of sanctions, but also how much they have recovered since then. During 1934 Itaiian imports of raw cotton averaged 43,400,000 pounds a month, In 1935 they began to fall heavily from May onward, and in the four months ended "Juhe, 1935, they averaged - only. 3,050,000 . pounds a month. In August of that year they rose to 63,000,000 pounds, but in ; September they dropped to 41,800,000 pounds and in the last quarter- of the year they totalled . only 42,900,000 pounds. - In the four months . ended Aptil 1937 they totalled 121,100,000 pounds. Cotton Yam Exports. On. the export side, cotton yams averaged 4,775,000 pounds a month -in 1934,. but in 1936 until December, when they Teached 3,620,000 - pounds, Tthey averaged only about 1,000,000 pounds a month. In each of i .s three months ended April this year they were "well over '4,200,000 pounds. ■ Rayon yam experts were not so greatly affected; the fourth quarter of 1935 was .the best period of that year as far as they were concemed, showing an average of 4,330,000 pounds a month. 2n 1936 until August the average was about 3,200,000 pounds a month, but by December of that year . trade had recovered to 5,930,000 pounds. In the four months ended April, 1937, a total of 19,550,000 pounds ' of rayon yam was exported. Itaiian exports of cotton piece goods had been contracting for some yeaTS before the Ethiopian trouble began, falling from 567,400 quintals in 1929 to 241,900 quintals in 1934. In the second half of 1935 exports were fairly well maintained at about the previous y'ear 's level, but the total in the first quarter of 1936 was only 29,700 quintals, and that in the second quarter was 49,700 quintals. The fourth quarter of that year, however, showed a monthly average of no less than 34,000 quintals, and there was an appreciable increase above this levei in the first four months of this year.