Foreign Office: Economic Relations Department and Foreign and Commonwealth Office,...

This series consists of registered files produced by the Economic Relations Department of the Foreign Office in the period January 1967 to October 1968 and its successors in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Subjects covered include economic relations with the rest of Europe and matters relating to important commodities, overseas economic aid and financial questions in the Dependent Territories from October 1968.

By former file reference

For earlier files see CO 1057

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Economic Relations Department, 1981-1996
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Financial Policy and Aid Department, 1968-1973
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Financial Relations Department, 1973-1980
• Foreign Office, Economic Relations Department, 1945-1968

From 1999 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Topics

International

Europe and Russia

Aid and development

The Economic Relations Department of the Foreign Office dealt with general economic matters, in particular in this period non-European Economic Community questions of the United Kingdom's economic relations with the rest of Europe (for instance dealings with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), and with commodities of importance to the British economy.

Following the merger of the Commonwealth Office and the Foreign Office on 17 October 1968, the Department was abolished. Some functions passed to two new Foreign and Commonwealth Office departments, Commodities and Oil Department and Trade Policy Department, but responsibility for general financial policy passed to the Financial Policy and Aid Department. The Department also handled general economic aid questions, including relations with the various international aid organisations, and financial issues relating to the remaining Dependent Territories.

The Department was renamed the Financial Relations Department in 1973, but with largely unaltered functions.