An Increase In UK Foreign Currency Reserves

A recent press notice concerning official holdings of international reserves from HM Treasury and the ONS shows that in December 2010 the UK Government's net foreign currency reserves stood at $38,366m, up $976m. Gross reserves were up $2,836m to $78,801m. The Bank of England's net level of reserves were up $18m to $2m and the gross level of holdings was up $2,890m to $27,500m.

There were no intervention operations in December 2010 to support sterling by the Government of by the Bank of England to support their monetary policy objectives.

UK Companies Profits Up By 11.9%

The net rate of return (NNR) of UK companies increased to 11.9% in the third quarter of 2010 according to a news release from the ONS. The revised estimate for Q2 was 11.6%. The annual NNR for 2009 was 11.3%.

Manufacturing companies NNR for Q3 was 8.7% compared with 7.5% previous quarter, services NNR was 13.9% compared with 14.7%, the lowest figure since 1993, and the NNR for non-UKCS companies was 10.6%. UK continental shelf companies NNR was 44.8% compared with 39% for the previous quarter. (UKCS companies NNR figures are not directly comparable due to the nature of capital assets involved).

Another Increase In Farm Gate Milk Prices In November

The UK farm gate milk price in pence per litre increased by 1.29p in November compared with November 2009 according to a national statistics release from Defra. The price per litre in November 2010 was 26.16p compared with 24.87p in November 2009 and with 25.63p in October. The butterfat content of UK milk was 4.11% on average compared with 4.08% in November 2009 and 4.03% in October. The average protein content of UK milk in November 2010 was 3.36% compared with 3.34% in November 2009 but the same as October 2010 and November 2008.

Real Agricultural Income In Europe

The first estimates on real agricultural income from Eurostat show that real agricultural income per worker in the EU27 increased by 12.3% in 2010 after a decrease of 10.7% in 2009. The cause of the increase in the index was a combination of an increase in real agricultural income and a fall in agricultural labour input.

Real agricultural income per worker is estimated to have increased by 10% between 2005 and 2010 while agricultural labour input has decreased by 12.7%.

The value of EU27 agricultural output at producer prices increased by an estimated 4.3% due mainly to an increase in the value of both crop production and animal production by 6.3% and 2.4% respectively.

Productivity Up 1.7%

Output per worker increased by 1.7% for the whole economy compared with the same quarter in 2009 and by 0.1% compared with the previous quarter. Output per hour increased by 1.4% in Q3 2010 compared with Q3 2009 and 0.3% on the last quarter. Unit wage costs increased by 0.5% compared woth 2009.

Manufacturing sector output per job increased by 8% in Q3 2010 compared with Q3 2009 and by 0.8% on the previous quarter. Output per job in the service sector increased by 1% on Q3 2009 and was unchanged on Q2 2010. In agriculture, output per job decreased by 8.2% and output per hour worked decreased by 11.6% in 2009 compared with 2008.

Services Growth In October

The index of services for October 2010 published recently by the ONS shows that the service industries grew by 1.9% on October 2009. The main contributor to the increase was the business and services component's increase of 2.6%. Within the business component the largest contributions came from the 5.2% increase in computer services and the 3.8% increase in real estate activities.

Four of the five components showed an increase and hotels and restaurants also increased by 2.6%. Distribution services and Government services both increased by 1.7%. Transport, storage and communication remained unchanged in October.

The index for the last three months was up 2.3% on a year earlier and 0.6% up on the last three months but down 0.4% on September 2010.