TRADE NEGOTIATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 April 1934, Page 7

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS

TO OPEN IN LONDON

BRITAIN AND NETHERLANDS

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIBELESS.]

(Received April 14, Noon). RUGBY, April 13.

The preliminary discussions regarding the scope of the forthcoming trade negotiations between Britain and the Netherlands, will take place on the arrival at London, on April 24, of Dr Hirschfeld, Director-General of Economic Affairs for the Netherlands Government.

The large dimensions of the trade carried on between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands invests the coming negotiations with much importance.

Last year, British exports to the Netherlands represented a value of £12,500,000, and Britain’s re-exports to the Netherlands were worth £2,000,000, while imports into the United Kingdom from the Netherlands totalled £19,000,000. Britain’s visible adverse balance with Holland amounted to £4,500,000. In the previous year, when imports from the Netherlands totalled £2,250,000, the balance was £750,000, and in 1931, when the British imports from the Netherlands reached the value of £35,000,000, the visible balance of trade was in favour of the Netherlands to the extent, of nearly £2,000,000. In regard to trade with the Dutch colonial possessions in the East Indies, the United Kingdom’s adverse balance last year was £1,064.000, having been reduced from £3,056,000 in 1932, and £3,291,000 in 1931. British exports and re-exports to the Netherlands East Indies last year totalled £2,983,000, while the imports amounted to £4,051,000.