El comercio exterior de América Latina en los primeros meses de 1957 = Latin American foreign trade in the early months of 1957

The deterioration in the terms of trade for some of Latin America's primary export commodities, which has been observable ever since 1954, continued during the early months of 1957.The explanation lies, on the one hand, in the relative weakness of world market prices for these commodities, and, on the other, in the higher quotations for manufactured goods imported by Latin America.It would therefore seem that foreign exchange income in 1957, in so far as it depends on relative prices, will be affected by the aforesaid deterioration.In 1955 and 1956, this adverse circumstance was more than counterbalanced by an increase in the volume of exports, thanks to Latin America's larger output of exportable goods and the decidedly favourable economic situation in the major industrial countries.Unfortunately, the same does not seem to be true of 1957.In fact, halfway through the year the most representative indices suggested that the trend towards expansion in world economic activity had come to a halt ; indeed, an actual contraction in foreign demand for many of Latin America's primary commodities has already been noted.' In default of complete statistics for Latin America, the following analysis was based on the unit value indices for exports from the United States, Canada and European countries.average rate at which prices are rising in the European countries.Such price increments in the industrial countries have been of an over-all nature, and have affected the manufactured products -capital goods, intermediate materials and durable consumer goods -which form the major part of Latin America's imports.To obtain some idea of the approximate magnitude of these increments, it will suffice to examine table 2, which shows, by quarters, for 1955, 1956 and the first 3 months of 1957, price indices in the United States, Canada and five of the industriaUzed countries of Europe.' In France a 20 per cent devaluation has just been decreed, which is intended, in combination with other measures, to meet balance-of-payments difliculties and promote exports.The United Kingdom in its turn has raised the bank discount rate by two points.

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