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production declines. Most British oil imports are taken from the Gulf area, while the NATO nations of Europe depend upon it for some 30% of their requirement. With about two thirds of the non-Communist world's known reserves and low production costs, this region is likely to remain one of major strategic
significance to the UK.
15.
Strategic Minerals. The DTI defines as strategic those minerals which are both essential to vital sectors of the
economy and not produced to any great extent in the UK. A list showing such minerals, together with the degree to which the UK is dependent upon other nations for their supply and the sources of supply, is at Appendix 5. The figures may vary slightly from time to time, but the general pattern is expected to hold good. Of these minerals the DTI consider 3
to be most critical to British industry and vulnerable to
disruption of supply. They are chromium, found almost exclusively in South Africa, Zimbabwe and the USSR; manganese
and vanadium, of which South Africa and the Soviet Union are
again the major producers. Judicious stockpiling and rates of consumption mean that lack of access to these minerals would not be immediately catastrophic, but after some months the
consequences for industry would become severe.
16.
Trade and Investment. The prevailing UK pattern of trade comprises an adverse balance of visible trade with most parts
of the developed world, a small favourable balance of visible trade with the developing world, and a favourable balance of invisible trade worldwide. within this pattern, about 75% of the visible trade is expected to remain with the EC, the rest of Western Europe and North America, with no single country accounting for more than 15% of total imports or exports. This latter diversity, while reducing to some extent the British economy's vulnerability to disruption of the trade flow to or from any particular country, implies also that the UK requires to be active in a wide variety of markets, none of
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