In the figures given in tables 1 and 4, credit has been taken for the new under-recording of exports reported on 16 November. Details are given in notes to the tables. The commentary is based on the figures so adjusted.

World economic growth slowed down sharply during the summer. Between the first and third quarters the annual rate of increase in the volume of industrial production in the industrial countries appears to have been only about 1½ per cent. Demand remained rather weak in a number of countries, notably the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, while in West Germany there was a severe shortage of capacity. Strikes, notably those in Italy and, more recently, the stoppage at General Motors in the United States, have also interfered with output to a greater extent than usual.

It is generally recognized that membership of the EEC would almost certainly mean for the United Kingdom the acceptance on the balance of payments of a substantial burden through the working of the Common Agricultural Policy. Part of this cost would take the form of higher import prices, as a result of buying food from other members rather than from cheaper sources outside the Community, and of direct contributions to the Community's Agricultural Fund; and part would result from the effects of higher prices for food on the general cost structure of the economy and hence on the competitiveness of exports. In addition, allowance must be made for the so-called ‘impact’ effects of tariff changes. Apart from the mutual reductions in tariffs between the United Kingdom and the Community's present members, the United Kingdom would in all probability forfeit the preferences over those countries which it now receives in the Commonwealth, EFTA, and the Irish Republic.

The Economic Review for February 1970 observed that: ‘In the last few years relationships which were previously reliable guides to likely rates of increase in wages and earnings have been giving less and less useful guidance, to the point of having become nearly irrelevant.’