Mond

WASHINGTON (UPI)—The
government's leading
economic indicators
dropped 1.8 percent last
month, the Commerce
Department reported
Monday — a grim forecast
of still more unemployment
and business setbacks.

The Commerce Depart-
ment said October's decline
completed the first con-
secutive three-month string

of losses for the composite

index since the one that

pointed to last year’s
recession.

In a _ separate report
Monday, the department

said the nation’s trade deficit
for October grew to $5.3
billion. It was the third
month this year of a trade
deficit above $5 billion,
leading department experts
to predict a year-end total of
“several billions” beyond last

Coast fishing
industry ‘collapsing’

OTTAWA (UPC)—The
Newfoundland government
helped produce a near crisis
in the east coast fishing
industry by encouraging
over-expansion of fish
processing plants, Fishing
Minister Romeo Leblanc
said Monday.

Leblanc said he tried to
slow down the plant ex-
pansion and protect the
inland fishing industry but
Newfoundland Fishing
Minister Jim Morgan $ap-
proved permits which in-
creased capacity by 230
percent since 1976.

The federal government
also refused federal aid for
plant expansion but the
banks stepped in and loaned
$7.5 billion, Leblanc said.

“The banks went against
the warning of my depart-
ment but there is
nothing you can do when
they have so much moncy,”
he said.

Leblanc is to meet with
provincial fishing ministers
in Ottawa next Monday and
will ask them to draft an
orderly fishing plan that will

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Conservative MP John
Fraser said the east coast
fishing industry was nearing
a “complete economic
collapse” while Conservative
MP Jim McGrath demanded
Leblanc show some
leadership to the industry.

He said the problem
wouldn't be solved by “band-
aid financial aid.”

Leblanc said the industry
had serious problems but the
causes were “not simple and
not related.”

There was a decrease in
American demand for fish
and the industry was also
hampered by high interest
rates.

The inland fishing industry
also suffered dramatically
when fish did not come near
the shore because of ex-
treme cold water, Leblanc
said.

Leblanc said an orderly
marketing plan would case
many of the problems but he
needed the co-operation of
the provincial ministers.

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year’s $36.4 billion deficit.

Total exports, upon which
one of every cight American
manufacturing jobs
depends, were down 3.1
percent to $19 billion, while
imports were up 9.4 percent
to $24 .3 billion.

The drop in the leading
indicators “points to further
moderate weakness in the
economy,” said Robert
Ortner, the Commerce

Department’s chief
economist. “The layoff rate
accounted for about 40
percent of it.”

Another economist, Allen
Sinai, vice president of the
private forecasing firm Data
Resources Inc., said the
figure “suggests we have
another three to five months
of the recession to go.”

A25 - Wednesday, December 2, 1981 - North Shore News

The composite index of
leading economic indicators
for October, set at 128.1
percent of the 1967 figure, is

adjusted for inflation, the
pace of deliveries, contracts
and orders for plant and
equipment and changes in

designed to forecast total liquid assets.

economic trends in the next Four of the 10 available

several weeks to months. indicators improved
Led downward by the somewhat: average work-

layoff rate, fivé other week, ‘crude materials

components also declined: prices, money supply and

building permits, new orders stock prices.

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