Recent Structural Changes and Balance-of- Payments Adjustments in Soviet Foreign Trade

Abstract

Abstract : The main general conclusion emerging from the study seems to be that Soviet responses to their balance-of-payments problem were speedy, vigorous, and comprehensive. Assuming that the decision to import grain was made about mid-1963, the scope of reactions, mainly of the restrictive kind, recorded in the trade statistics even for that year is impressive. By 1964, a full-scale redeployment of trade to deal with the new situation--and to contain the gold drain--must have been in full swing. The countermeasures were by no means confined to hard-currency trade. Food trade with Communist countries was profoundly affected, both by restricting Soviet exports and generating additional imports. Even the limited opportunities for doing likewise in trade with non-Communist underdeveloped countries were not neglected. Findings indicate that the opportunities available to Moscow planners for handling balance-of-payments crises by manipulating foreign trade are great enough to arouse the envy of their counterparts in Western capitals besieged by similar problems. But the Western planners may console themselves by the thought that they can fall back on various cooperative cushions of international liquidity, whereas Moscow remains out in the cold in this respect.