ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, July 3, 1996                TAG: 9607030043
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press 

WE OWN EVEN LESS OF U.S. FOREIGN OWNERSHIP CONTINUES GROWING

The United States fell deeper into debt last year.

In its annual look at America's international balance sheet, the Commerce Department said Tuesday that America's net debtor position rose to $814 billion, up from $580.1 billion in 1994.

The net debtor position is the shortfall between what foreigners own in U.S. assets - corporations, real estate, stocks and bonds - compared with what Americans own in overseas assets.

The 40 percent jump in America's net debtor position in the past year reflected the fact that the deficit in the broadest measure of trade, the current account, climbed to $153 billion in 1995, the second worst showing in history.

Until the mid-80s, the United States enjoyed the title as the world's largest creditor country, a position now held by Japan, as the amount of American-owned assets abroad dwarfed the foreign-owned assets in this country.

However, in 1986 the United States became a net debtor for the first time since early in this century, and that position has grown every year as Americans transfer billions of dollars overseas to pay for imported cars, oil and other products.

Strictly speaking, the net debtor figure is not a debt in a classic sense because it includes not only bank loans but all forms of investment. However, it does represent the amount that would have to be produced if for some reason foreigners suddenly decided to liquidate all of their U.S. holdings.

Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Lehman Brothers in New York, said he believed the country's net debtor position, after surging over the past decade, should stabilize in coming years.

He said stronger overseas growth should spur U.S. exports and thus narrow the goods deficit this year, meaning that fewer dollars will be flowing into the hands of foreigners.

``As long as we are running current account deficits, our net debtor position will go up,'' he said, ``but the pace of the increase should slow and the debtor position relative to the size of the total U.S. economy should stabilize.''

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