This article shows in broad terms the United Kingdom's international position on capital account at the end of 1966, bringing up to date the figures for the end of 1962 and 1964 which were given in earlier articles in this Bulletin. There are brief comments on the main changes since 1964.
The figures for the three years are summarised in a table at the end. Two points need to be made about this table. First, the inventory cannot be complete, because there are inevitably some shortcomings in the official statistics. Second, although the figures are brought together in a systematic way, resembling a balance sheet, the various elements of the table are so fundamentally different in kind, and are valued by such differing methods, that the figure produced by adding them together and striking a balance is of very limited practical significance.
An inventory of UK external assets and liabilities end-1966