BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28321, 5 July 1957, Page 11

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

“No Cause For Complacency”

LONDON, July 3. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers agreed today that the state of the sterling area’s balance of payments gave no cause for complacency, but equally no reason for alarm. The Commonwealth statesmen were making an all-day study of the position of the sterling area, to which all their countries except Canada belong. They agreed on several general propositions calculated to strengthen its position as the world’s largest single trading unit. These were:—

(1) Every effort must be made to maintain and further increase the strength of the £ sterling. (2) There must be no relaxation in the efforts to improve the sterling area’s balance of trade with the rest of the world, but they must keep in view the imperative need of the, underdeveloped countries of the area to raise their living standards through agricultural and industrial development projects. (3) The Commonwealth efforts to do this must be both individual and collective, each nation seeing to it that its own economic development goes on at a reasonable pace.

(4) The best way to ensure this was by each nation making a vigilant and careful study of its various development projects giving them the correct priorities.

(5) The member nations should properly husband their internal resources in the interest of attracting all kinds of capital on the best possible terms.