Further to my article tae¥o Bone more figures have been issued comparing the performance of exporting countries. These were for the first half of this year. Comparing the perfomance this year with that of the first six months of last year we get the following percentage increases: Holland (234), Belgium/Luxemburg (22%), Canada (21), Sweden (20%), Japan (193%), Italy (18%), USA (18%), West Germany (16%), France (123%), Switzerland (11%), and, bottom of the table, U.K. (7%)*. Only France, Switzerland and the U.K. were below the world average of 16%.
But when we come to Labour costs we find, according to a recent survey in Industrial News, the following picture:
Labour costs as a percentage of 1959
1960 1961 1962 1963 France 104 107 L135 121 West Germany 106 112 119 120 Italy 101 103 108 128 Netherlands 103 108 116 117 U.K. 100 106 108 110 U.S.As 101 101 99 100
Taken in conjunction with the figures I gave last week of export growth year by year, it will be seen that there is no basis whatsoever for blaming Britain's.lagging exports on to high wages. It should be noted that the actual”wage costs in most EEC countries is much higher than the increase in labour costs - the difference being due to increased productivity. * Percentages have been roundeds
AD NOTES.