IN WORLD TRADE?

ECONOMICS IS THERE A SOVIET CHALLENGE SovieT competition in trade and aid with the ‘uncommitted’ countries is a new factor in the East-West political balance.

Whatever some’ may say about the feasibility of Soviet autarky (self-sufficiency) this is not practical politics. Economic expansion itself has made -increased intercourse with other countries possible, and even necessary.

Now, for example, whole industrial plants can be exported on low credit terms—but, on the other hand, complete factories have been contracted for in capitalist countries, including Britain (from whom a rubber factory is on order).

Soviet purchases of raw materials and foodstuffs, needed to meet consumer demand for more goods, can be used with political effect. The Soviet Union buys a large part of the Icelandic herring catch which Mr George Dawson could not sell in Britain.

Purchases from Egypt, Syria and Burma have been used to permit these countries greater independence, At the Cairo conference of Afro-Asian countries lavish offers of aid were made.

Extent can be exaggerated The extent of this incursion into the world market can be exaggerated, both by Soviet propaganda and by those in the West concerned with stepping up military spending and foreign aid programmes.

Despite the attention given to Soviet deals with such countries as India, Indonesia and Burma they do not so far represent a large proportion of either the trade or foreign assistance of these countires.

The Soviet share of trade with the under-developed countries is around 15 per cent. While credits made total about £430 million, only a part has so far been taken up.

India’s foreign debt, as in February 1958, shows that of a total of 2,213 million rupees, only 128 million are accounted for by the USSR, less than west Germany and far less than employment’. ~ Implied here was the idea that East-West trade could counteract economic depression in the capitalist countries—a repeated, but contradictory, theme of Communist Party propaganda.