Mr. AHALT. For 1981, we expect to see output improve in the United States and believe that inflation, while it will continue to be a problem, will not go up quite as much as it did in 1980. On page 19, we show the performance of U.S. agricultural exports. Here you see a tremendous growth in exports of U.S. farm products since the 1971-72 period. [The charts referred to follow:] Destination 1/ : : : : : : : 1980/81 : 1971/72 : 1972/73 : 1973/74 : 1977/78: 1978/79 : 1979/80 : Forecast Billion dollars 5.00 8.45 11.44 14.46 16.57 20.17 23-25 1.05 1.75 3.58 4.38 4.91 7.76 8-10 : 1.63 2.43 4.03 4.91 5.72 6.51 7-9 USSR 2/ : .27. .96 .34 1.87 2.18 1.46 1.6 Eastern Europe : .24 .46 .68 1.14 1.52 2.44 2-3 China 0 .43 .84 .37 .92 1.96 2-3 Other .05 .50 .70 .16 .16 .19 .1-.3 Total : 8.24 14.98 21.61 27.29 31.98 40.48 47-49 1/ October-September years; not adjusted for transshipments. 2/ 1980/81 Forecast based on shipment of 8 million tons Mr. AHALT. In 1980-81, we estimate that U.S. agricultural exports will total between $47 and $49 billion. That, of course, will be by far a new record over last year's $40.5 billion. As you can see from the chart, the major market for U.S. agricultural products continues to be what we call the developed market economies-Western Europe, Japan and Canada. But I would call your attention to two segments in the chart that are growing tremendously, the African and Latin American markets. These are regions where economic growth is occurring very rapidly along with the Asian market-excluding the two largest markets, Japan and China. That part of the world is becoming a tremendous user of U.S. farm products. And then, of course, we have the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China itself. On page 20, we view U.S. exports in a different way. The previous chart looked at the value of these commodities shipped abroad. On page 20, we see the volume of commodities shipped each year. For 1980-81, we are expected to move almost 170 million tons of U.S. farm products, almost three times what we were moving out of this country 10 years ago. The bulk of these products moved abroad are grains, followed by oilseeds, then cotton and animal products. 2/ 1970/71 1972/73 1973/74 1977/78 1978/79 1979/80 1980/817 ---Million metric tons-- 1/ October-September years. 2/ Forecast. 3/ Includes feed and fodders. Mr. AHALT. In this past decade, 70 to 75 percent of the growth in our exports has really been in grain to provide better diets, both in terms of more food grains to the world as well as more feed grains 75-788 0-81--9 for much of the world to produce more meat, milk and eggs to upgrade diets. BALANCE OF TRADE Another way to look at this performance is to look at the trade balance, shown on page 21. Exports Imports Balances: 1.2 .5 2.9 4.8 7.3 21.9 23.0 23.7 29.4 34.7 41.0 +10.2 +14.6 +18.0 +23.6 Agricultural -.3 -.8 -1.1 +1.0 +1.5 +12.6 +12.0 Nonagricultural +1.0 +2.1 +2.5 +4.4 +1.3 -2.8 -20.7 -40.0 -46.4 -46.7 -50.0 Mr. AHALT. Here we compare the agricultural trade balance with the nonagricultural balance. We went back to 1930 when these were fairly stable. But beginning about 1970, the United States began to generate a tremendously larger agricultural trade balance, because our exports rose very rapidly, while our imports went up only modestly. In 1980, we generated a $23.6 billion agricultural trade balance. The problem has been, of course, that our nonagricultural sector has gone the other way. Here, the value of our imports, pushed up by expensive oil, has greatly exceeded the value of our nonagricultural exports and caused a negative trade balance that exceeds the positive side generated by agriculture I am going to skip the charts on pages 22 and 23-These are selfexplanatory-and ask you to turn to page 24. [The charts referred to follow:] |