GREAT RECOVERY IN BRITAIN'S TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 301, 21 December 1939, Page 7

GREAT RECOVERY IN BRITAIN'S TRADE.

NOVEMBER R/SE.

Imports Of Foodstuffs And War Materials Up. EXPORTS REFLECT TREND. British Official Wireless. (Received noon.) RUGBY, December 20. The remarkable recovery ' in Britain's export trade, revealed in the Board of Trade figures, is greeted with satisfaction by the Press, which considers the figures against the German claim to have blockaded the British Isles.

The statistics show that imports have arrived in a volume which represents a greater sterling expenditure than in any month since January. 1938, and that exports went out more freely after the hold-up during the first two months of the war.

In 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 are 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 the 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 of last year. Compared with October, more iron and steel products, machinery and vehicles were shipped abroad.

In commenting on the fact that the imports show improvement, not only with respect to the preceding month, but also indicate an 8 per cent rise in imports compared with November, 1938, the_ newspapers note that the categories in which the principal increases occurred—cotton, non-ferrous ores, scrap, oil seed and oil—comprise commodities in which Germany is notoriously deficient.