the country, that they should be prepared in consultation with the Provincial Governments of East Pakistan and West Pakistan and to their satisfaction and should ensure that there is maximum utilization of the resources of the country in the shortest possible time. These plans will be placed before the National Economic Council. I maintain that in that body we have the means of bringing unity and harmony in this very important and vital field. In this Council will be associated Ministers of the Central Government and Ministers of the Provincial Governments and they will work together. It may be said they may disagree; possibly they might, but I have no doubt that reasonable men sitting round the table objectively examining the facts and figures before them and determined to do the best that is possible for the country, will reach an agreement. That has been my own experience, today we sit in the Cabinet Ministers from East Pakistan and Ministers from West Pakistan we examine each proposal on merits in the interest of the whole country, East Pakistan as well as West Pakistan. I have no doubt that if one works in that spirit; one can achieve most valuable results.
There are one or two figures of a general kind, which I would like to mention although I had no intention of entering into this area of controversy. It has been said that the wealth of East Pakistan is being drained away. This is not correct. What does the Centre get from East Pakistan-the contribution from East Pakistan to Central revenues plus the part of the Central loans which comes out of East Pakistan. What is put into East Bengal by the Central Government is through the disbursements of the Central Government on revenue account and capital account plus the loans advanced by the Central Government to the Provincial Government. The outgoings from the Centre are in excess of the Centre's receipts.
Mr. Abul Mansur Ahmad: Question.
The Honorable Mr. Mohammad Ali: By many crores. This is the first thing. Secondly about Foreign Exchange. In thinking of Foreign Exchange one has to look not merely at the balance of trade or the balance of merchandise with the rest of the world, but also with the rest of Pakistan. It makes no difference from that point of view whether the goods come from West Pakistan or from any outside sources. From 1949-50 to 195455, East Pakistan has had a trade surplus of 136 crores and West Pakistan had a deficit of 40 crores.
Mr. Abul Mansur Ahmad: Incorrect.
The Honourable Mr. Mohammad Ali: That is the trade deficit taking into account the trade with foreign countries as well as inter-zonal trade. But the balance of trade as everyone knows is a very different thing from what is known as balance of payments. The Balance of Payment takes into account many other items, shipping, insurance, movement of capital, movement of gold and so on. Within a country there are not exact statistics for these movements. It is because of this that no one is in a position to prepare the balance of payments for separate parts of the same country having the same currency system and belonging to a single economy. Remittances and transfers are continually being made and there is no statistical record of this. In the one field in which for some time statistics have been kept namely, gold, the movement has been continually from West Pakistan to East Pakistan. Further, one has to consider the payments made outside
