CHINA’S TRADE POLICY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25300, 27 September 1947, Page 9

CHINA’S TRADE POLICY

MORE IMPORTS FROM STERLING AREA

CONSERVING EXCHANGE RESOURCES

(Rec. 11 p.tn.) NEW YORK, Sept. 26. “China’s battle to conserve its dwindling foreign, exchange has led to an official campaign to increase imports of acutely needed commodities from the sterling bloc countries instead of those tied to the dollar,” says the Nanking correspondent of the “New York Times.”

“Chinese embassies and consulates in Europe have already been ordered to change from a dollar to a* sterling basis for transactions. Since the end of the war. the unfavourable trade balance has drained off more than 500.000,000 dollars in exchange, and the Central Bank’jj exchange assets, including gold and silver holdings, are now estimated at less than 300,000,000 United States dollars.

“In implementing a policy of exchange control, China has been trying to pare its impdrts to the bone and to increase its exports. Within the limits of the available exchange, however, the new move appears designed to capitalise at least temporarily—in the absence of a further United States loan—on such advantages as may lie in the sterling bloc.”