In November 1981 Hungary and, one week later, Poland applied for membership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank). These applications have highlighted a subject which had been neglected for quite some time. This...

Before the German Democratic Republic (GDR) achieved worldwide political recognition in 1972 and 1973 many Western observers were of the opinion that the GDR’s trade with Western industrialised countries was still not very developed. A closer look at this field of activity shows, however, a...

While foreign policy as well as economic, ideological and purely humanitarian considerations all continue to play a role in economic relations between the CMEA countries and the Third World, a shift in the relative weights of these various aspects has become discernible in recent years. What...

Dispute as to the need for any thoroughgoing reform of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance flared up all over again at its 44th Congress in Prague in July 1988. The Soviet Union has now placed itself at the head of the movement for reform but the problems to be faced are considerable and...

The statute of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) assigns to the institutions of the council the task to promote the process of specialization and cooperation in the production sector of the national economies. The development of the relations between the member countries indicates...