DOLLAR ASSETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 237, 5 October 1940, Page 9

DOLLAR ASSETS.

BRITAIN'S RESERVES. Dipped Only Slightly Into American Funds. British Official Wireless. (Reed. 9.30 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 4. So far Britain has clipped only lightly into her reserves of assets convertible into dollars. According to the monthly bulletin of the National City Bank of New York only a comparatively small part of the £1,250,000,000 of liquid dollar assets and gold held at the beginning

of the war has been paid out, and the abUity of the Empire to finance its heavy purchases in the United States has not yet been strained.

' The most striking fact revealed by an examination of the figures is that the Empire's output of newly-mined gold, amounting to more than £187,000,000 during the first year of the war, would more than offset the Empire's unfavourable balance on merchandise trade in the same period.

Tlio reduction of £120,000,000 in dollar balances and security holdings in the first 10 months of the war is probably evidence that the merchandise trade balance substantially understates British payments made in the United States.

Nevertheless, the indications are that gold production has relieved the strain on the available gold reserves and dollar assets to a greater extent than may generally be realised.