Overseas Balances Reduced

Northern Advocate, 27 July 1938, Page 4

Overseas Balances Reduced

I Special to “Northern Advocate.”] WELLINGTON. This Day. Recent reductions in the London balances c-f the Dominion are reviewed in the annual report of the Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank oi New Zealand, which was tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday. Under the heading of “assets” the report points out that sterling exchange eligible as a reserve for notes in circulation and other demand liabilities decreased during the year by the equivalent cf £2,852,696 in New Zealand currency, or £2.300,561 sterling. “During the year.” states the report, “there was a diminution of £7.820,000 in New Zealand currency in the combined net overseas assets of the whole banking system in respect of New Zealand business, as shown by the following comparisons of the figures for the last Mondays in March in 1937 and 1938: 1937. 1938. Decrease. ,£ £ £ Reserve Bank 19.099.000 16.930.000 2.169,000 Trading Bank 15,286.000 9,635,000 5.651.000

Totals 34,385,000 26,565.000 7.820,000 “The lowest point reached during the year—£22,985,000 on January 31, 1938 —was £5,095,000, less than the ’.owest figure for the previous finam cial year, reached on December 28, 1936. “The surplus for the year ended March 31,” the report adds at a later stage,” was several million pounds less than the favourable annual balance required to provide for Government and local bodies’ debt services and other expenses overseas, in addition to the estimated amount of invisible items, such as net tourist expenditure commissions, interest, and the like. The Dominion has been drawing upon its overseas .resources during the year to a ccnsidrable extent.”