BRITISH TRADE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1939, Page 5

BRITISH TRADE

IMPORTS AT HIGH LEVEL GRATIFYING EXPANSION OF EXPORTS. REPLY TO NAZI BLOCKADE CLAIM. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 20. The remarkable recovery in Britain’s export trade revealed in the Board of Trade figures for November is greeted with satisfaction by the Press, which considers the figures a reply to the. German claim to have blockaded tin 1 British Isles. The statistics show that imports arrived in a volume for which more sterling was spent than in any other month since January. 1938. and that exports went out more freely after the hold-up during the first two months of the war.

Regarding imports, increases were shown in the value of grain and flour, meat and dairy produce, iron and steel, base metals, and rubber. The most substantial increases were recorded in cocoa, much of which was resold abroad; in raw cotton, the value of which was three times that of November, 1938; in iron and steel, and in oils, fats, and resins. Tobacco imports were sharply cut down and less timber was taken.

Among exports the most conspicuous expansion has been in cotton yarns and manufactures and woollen goods, cocoa, coal, and chemicals, the values of which were all higher than in November last year. Compared with October more iron and steel products and machinery and vehicles were shipped abroad. In commenting on the fact that imports not only show an improvement with respect to the preceding month but also indicate an 8 per cent rise compared with November, 1938, newspapers note that the categories in which the principal increases occurred —cotton, non-ferrous ores, scrap, oil seeds, and oil-—comprise commodities in which Germany is notoriously deficient.