FINANCIAL NOTES
FOUR MONTHS' TRADE
THE Overseas Trade Returns for April suggest two general conclusions : the volume of both imports and exports is con- tinuing to shrink ; as the shrinkage is much sharper in imports than in exports, the adverse balance of merchandise trade is becoming less marked. The process of readjustment to a new equilibrium is not, however, unduly sharp. This table indi- cates the movements compared with the first four months of 1938:
,-- January-April --,
1938
£
1939 £ Fall % Imports 318,552,317 288,261,578 9.5 Exports 158,135,710 154,250,686 2.5 Re-exports 20,800,525
183845,463
9.4 Adverse Balance 139,616,082 115,165,429 17.5
These figures naturally exclude the movements of bullion which has left the country for reasons more or less uncon- nected with the current trade position. To , complete the picture, one should perhaps add that in the first four months of 1939 there was a net export of £121,133,396 of bullion and specie, whereas in the corresponding months of 1938 there was a net import of £46,676,393. There has thus been an adverse capital movement of around £167,810,000, bearing little relation to the improvement of about £24,45o,000 in the visible trade balance.
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