Oil States’ huge take

Press, 16 February 1980, Page 9

Oil States’ huge take

NZPA-Reuter Geneva The world's big oil-pro-ducing States achieved record export earnings of more than $200,000 million last year, according to an international trade review issued in Geneva.

The report said the earnings registered by the 13 members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries represented an increase of about 40 per cent over 1978.

Their imports dropped by about 4 per cent, resulting in a bigger current-account surplus of $60,000 million. By contrast, the deficit of developing - countries outside O.P.E.C. rose from $30,000

million in 1978 to $50,000 million last year. The review said world output of farm products declined in 1979 for only the second time since the Second World War, mainly because of a sharp fall in cereal crops in some Communist and developing countries. Rates of inflation increased throughout the world, with consumer prices rising by 11 per cent in industrialised countries and by about 30 per cent in developing countries. The review said economic expansion in the Soviet Union and its East European allies slowed down for the second successive year.

Ii The growth of national income in these countries I dropped to its lowest rate > since 1945, mainly because : of the fall in farm output. At the same time their • exports to the West increased more than their imports, resulting in a reduction of the countries’ combined trade deficit. China’s : imports grew faster than its exports, and as a. result its trade deficit doubled last year to about $2OOO million. The review was prepared by the secretariat of the 85nation General Agreement ■ on Tariffs and Trade, the world’s leading trade monitoring agency.