ABSTRACT
H I T H E R T O our foreign trade with the E.P.U. area has been dominated by a fruitful exchange of dynamic impulses and rising turnover. Our trade also showed a tendency towards a surplus based upon our high balances with Europe, though a small limiting factor could be introduced by bringing in the overseas sterling area. Our surpluses within the E.P.U. area reflect our overall surplus position, which is increased by the tendency towards a surplus with the clearing countries and is not totally eliminated by our debit balance with the dollar area. One could make light ofthis situation, particularly in view of our obligations under the London Debt Agreement and of a possible further liberalisation of the items making up our invisible balance of payments within the O.E.E.C. Yet this situation might increase our dollar gap in visible trade. We are today faced by the paradoxical co-existence of a dollar gap and a Deutsche Mark gap, and, though the E.P.U. helps to close part of the dollar gap, another part of the gap is merely shifted to a different place and the gap as a whole is not eliminated-a position familiar to all the E.P.U. countries.
