USSR: GETTING TOUGH ON TRADE WITH EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87T00759R000100130009-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 12, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: October 23, 1985
• Content Type: MISC

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP87T00759R000100130009-4~-, 25X1
ECRET
Acting NIO/Economics
23 October 1985
USSR: Getting Tough on Trade with Eastern Europe
Moscow is pressing hard for economic concessions from Eastern Europe
in its current discussions of the next five-year plan.
Moscow has told the East Germans that some equipment formerly
supplied by the USSR will have to be purchased from the West,
and deliveries of certain raw materials from the Soviet Union--
such as zinc, coal, lead, and timber--will be reduced.
Other East European countries have learned that there will be
reductions in supplies of raw materials such as non-ferrous
metals and chemicals.
Oil deliveries to Bulgaria, which has been re-exporting some
Soviet oil for hard currency, will also be reduced apparently to
levels sufficient to meet domestic needs only.
Outside of CEMA, Moscow is threatening not to increase gas
deliveries to Yugoslavia in what may be an effort to lever the
Yugoslavs into purchasing a Soviet nuclear reactor.
Eastern Europe's trade deficit with the USSR has already been cut
substantially as Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia increased exports
to the USSR this year, apparently at the expense of sales to the West.
-- So far, aside from the reduction to Bulgaria, the Soviets have
kept their promise to continue providing oil at last year's
level.
-- Indeed, the trade press indicates the USSR temporarily reduced
oil deliveries further to the West in recent weeks so that it
could make up for shortfalls in Iranian deliveries to CEMA
countries.
-- Moscow, however, is pressing CEMA for increased help in building
energy infrastructure in the USSR--particularly the Yamburg gas
pipeline--as part of the price for maintaining oil shipments and
to provide more gas.
If, as expected, Moscow's new five-year plan calls for increased
investment in the heavy industrial base and energy with no reduction in
the defense effort, consumer goods production will suffer.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP87T00759R000100130009-4
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP87T00759R000100130009-4
:CRET
-- Moscow will likely look to Eastern Europe to make up some of
this shortfall both for consumer products and machinery to make
the goods.
-- The CEMA countries have already cut back growth of investment in
equipment to produce consumer goods, however, and will not be
able to increase significantly deliveries to the USSR while
maintaining domestic availability.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/11/16: CIA-RDP87T00759R000100130009-4