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World Trade in Manufactures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

R. L. Major*
Affiliation:
National Institute

Extract

World exports of manufactures have risen rapidly in the last decade—indeed faster than world manufacturing production (chart 1). There were checks in 1951–53 and in 1958; even so the yearly rate of rise since 1950 has been 9 per cent in value, 7 1/2 per cent in volume. The pattern of this trade has been changing, particularly in the last five years: markets have grown faster in the industrial countries than in the less developed parts of the world (chart 2). Since 1954, in value terms, the exports of manufactures to the United States and to OEEC countries have been rising at an average rate of 17 per cent and 10 per cent a year respectively; to Latin America and the sterling area, only 3 1/2 per cent and 4 1/2 per cent.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1960 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

note (1) page 19 Survey of Current Business, December 1959; Board of Trade Journal, 11 March 1960; ‘The dollar’, National Institute Economic Review, no. 2, March 1959.

note (1) page 21 The article is based where possible on statistics issued by the United Nations and the OEEC or in national trade publications, particularly the Board of Trade Journal. A fair amount of estimation has, however, been necessary. In particular, complete 1959 figures for United States exports excluding ‘special category’ exports have not yet been pub lished on the Standard International Trade Classification.

note (1) page 22 The devaluation of the French franc may explain part of this. It more than offset the rise in French export prices, in terms of francs, in 1959, and reduced her export prices, in terms of dollars, by about 8 per cent. This was probably more than was required to make her exports competitive in her own monetary zone.

note (1) page 25 Year-to-year changes in the share of exports in this group can, however, be distorted by the timing of deliveries of ships and aircraft. The whole of the increase in United States exports of transport equipment to the overseas sterling area, for instance, (table 5) is explained by large deliveries of air craft to Australia.

note (1) page 26 This is not necessarily true of total world trade in manufactures, since other countries whose performance is not analysed here (Belgium, Canada, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland) will almost certainly have gained by the change in pattern.

note (2) page 26 The proportion is not larger than this, because the sterling area's total imports rose relatively slowly.

note (1) page 27 Appendix, table 21.