A TOP PRIORITY ITEM on the list of national economic goals for the USSR is the development of its frontier regions in Pacific Siberia.' This means a move to exploit resources in a region that is closer to some Pacific Rim countries than to the industrialized centers of western Russia. This massive development program invites the curious observer to look more carefully at the role of international trade in Pacific Siberian development and, in particular, to look at the future of trade relations between Pacific Siberia and countries in the Pacific Rim. The most prominent form of trade relations in Pacific Siberia is the acquisition of technology and machinery from the advanced western countries for Siberian resource development, in return for cash, credit, or product payback. As is well known, this foreign trade is conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Trade which grants to various Foreign Trade Organizations (FTOs) authority to trade in certain products. These FTOs are headquartered in Moscow and decisions are made in Moscow. Some FTOs prominent in Pacific Siberia are EXPORTLES, SOYUZNEFTEXPORT, SOYUZPROMEXPORT, TEXHNOPROMIMPORT, PRODINTORG, inter alia. The participation of Pacific Siberia in the foreign trade of the country through the lines of these appointed FTOs has come to be called participation in the big trade.2 1 In this paper, I will use Pacific Siberia (a term from Paul Dibb's Siberia and the Pacific) as shorthand for the geographical area encompassing the Soviet Far East and the larger portions of Eastern Siberia. 2 See V. M. Kuznetsov, Participation of the Eastern Regions of the USSR in Foreign Trade of the Country: Conditions and Perspectives, in G. I. Kostikov, editor, Joprosi Ekonomiki Dal'nego Vostoka, p. 196.