SUSPENSION OF STERLING

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25303, 1 October 1947, Page 5

SUSPENSION OF STERLING

»PLIGHT OF ARGENTINA The suspension of sterling convertibility will mean that a number of countries besides the United Kingdom will have to re-examine the whole of their trading policy. The Argentine is one of these, says the “financial Times” (London). She is, broadly, faced with a heavy import programme from the United States to which she exports littte. In May, for example, imports from the United States amounted to nearly 200,000,000 pesos—47 per cent, di total imports—against a monthly average in 1946 of 55,400,000 pesos. In the first five months of 1947 imports from the United States averaged 136,300,000 pesos—42 per cent, of- the total—and the tendency is for these imports to rise in quantity and in relative importance. The Argentine’s foreign trade, in fact, sadly lacks balance in a world of inconvertible currencies. Her figures for the first five months of this year were: United States, exports, 12 per cent., imports 41.3 per cent.; United Kingdom, 27.2 per cent, and 9 per cent.; Continental Europe! 34.6 per cent, and 21.5 per cent.; Latin America, 12.7 per cent, and 17. 2> per cent.; others, 13.5 per cent, and 11 per cent. The two countries with which Argentina’s trade is most out of step are the United Kingdom and the United States. The Argentine has financed heavy purchases of capital goods from the United States partly from her own gold and dollar resources built up during the war, and partly from her current dollar earnings which have come in the main from the United Kingdom. The first of the sources is declining rapidly, the second has to some extent stopped. It will be appreciated, therefore, that the Argentine has a large stake in European recovery, not only of the United Kingdom, but a|so of the Continent.