dimanche, janvier 04, 2004
LONDON - Want to buy a largish island off France? Slightly used, with annex. Rains a bit. Trains often late. Nice gardens. Food dubious, but lots of places to drink.
Yours for under £5 trillion (S$15.1 trillion).
If the 58.8 million occupants ever care to sell, that is.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) whipped up a price tag for the United Kingdom - that is Britain, comprising England, Wales, Scotland, plus Northern Ireland - in a year-end tally of the nation's capital assets.
The precise figure is £4.98 trillion, or £84,760 for every man, woman and child as of April 2001.
For the price of Britain, one could buy 6,200 Millennium Domes, 8,800 B-2 Stealth bombers or 199,000 David Beckhams.
The figure includes the UK's physical assets - such as all its buildings, vehicles, machinery, bridges, roads - and other assets like patents, computer software, shares and money in individual bank accounts. The amounts are based on 2002 data.
The study is used to help economists predict future growth and is more detailed than previous reports, the BBC said.
'We found that £5 trillion was the current market value of the United Kingdom, including the value of the land,' said ONS statistician Ian Hill.
'That's risen a lot over the last few years because property prices have shot up.'
The housing boom has resulted in residential homes making up 55 per cent of the total, up from 44 per cent in 1994, the BBC reported.
The £2.7 trillion contribution is twice the figure 10 years ago.
The second-biggest price tag - £565 billion - is attached to commercial and public buildings, while civil engineering infrastructure such as roads, railways and pipelines are valued at £537 billion.
Manufacturing has remained static since 1998 with a value of £200 billion.
But the massive rise in the country's value will give little comfort to the government and, particularly, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, as he crunches ever-larger borrowing figures at the Treasury.
The BBC said the government was well in the red, with a net worth of minus £124 billion after deducting the national debt and other obligations.
The estimate is the first of its kind in terms of detail from the ONS, a government agency, and is based on a 'more robust system' of analysing data, Mr Hill said. -- AFP
Straits Times Dec 31, 2003
LONDON - Want to buy a largish island off France? Slightly used, with annex. Rains a bit. Trains often late. Nice gardens. Food dubious, but lots of places to drink.
Yours for under £5 trillion (S$15.1 trillion).
If the 58.8 million occupants ever care to sell, that is.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) whipped up a price tag for the United Kingdom - that is Britain, comprising England, Wales, Scotland, plus Northern Ireland - in a year-end tally of the nation's capital assets.
The precise figure is £4.98 trillion, or £84,760 for every man, woman and child as of April 2001.
For the price of Britain, one could buy 6,200 Millennium Domes, 8,800 B-2 Stealth bombers or 199,000 David Beckhams.
The figure includes the UK's physical assets - such as all its buildings, vehicles, machinery, bridges, roads - and other assets like patents, computer software, shares and money in individual bank accounts. The amounts are based on 2002 data.
The study is used to help economists predict future growth and is more detailed than previous reports, the BBC said.
'We found that £5 trillion was the current market value of the United Kingdom, including the value of the land,' said ONS statistician Ian Hill.
'That's risen a lot over the last few years because property prices have shot up.'
The housing boom has resulted in residential homes making up 55 per cent of the total, up from 44 per cent in 1994, the BBC reported.
The £2.7 trillion contribution is twice the figure 10 years ago.
The second-biggest price tag - £565 billion - is attached to commercial and public buildings, while civil engineering infrastructure such as roads, railways and pipelines are valued at £537 billion.
Manufacturing has remained static since 1998 with a value of £200 billion.
But the massive rise in the country's value will give little comfort to the government and, particularly, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, as he crunches ever-larger borrowing figures at the Treasury.
The BBC said the government was well in the red, with a net worth of minus £124 billion after deducting the national debt and other obligations.
The estimate is the first of its kind in terms of detail from the ONS, a government agency, and is based on a 'more robust system' of analysing data, Mr Hill said. -- AFP
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