MOSCOW TRADE TALKS

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25248, 29 July 1947, Page 7

MOSCOW TRADE TALKS

SOVIET STATEMENT ISSUED

REASONS GIVEN FOR FAILURE (Rec. 7 pan.) LONDON, July 27. The Moscow radio says that dis agreement about financial credits caused the breakdown of the BritishSoviet trade talks. The broadcast denied reports of disagreement about grain prices, and it blamed Britain for not accepting Russia’s compromise proposals for adjusting the 1941 credits. The radio said that Russia wanted a reduction of interest rates to J per cent., and the prolongation of payments over 15 years from 1944. Russia, after a discussion, offered to accept the prolongation of only half the credits, but, according to the broadcast, Britain rejected this, and proposed that only one-quarter should be prolonged. The broadcast added that another reason for the breakdown was that the British could not guarantee delivery of certain goods in the required amounts.

It declared that both sides agreed on the grain prices. The price for wheat was agreed at a figure considerably lower than that at which Britain recently bought a large quantity in Argentina, and lower than that at present obtaining on the Canadian market.

The Moscow statement added that Russia wanted from Britain 50,000 tons of narrow-gauge rails in 1947, a further 100,000 tons each year to 1950, and oyer the same period 100,000 tons of oil pipeline.

In return, Russia offered to supply 1,009,000 tons of grain from this year’s harvest. 1,500,000 tons in 1948, and 2,000,090 tons each year in 1949 and 1950, as well as large quantities of tinned fish and timber. The leader of the British delegation to Moscow (Mr Harold Wilson) I* to make a statement on the talks to-mor-row.

.J rh^ C ? m “ un ‘ st Par ‘y newspaper, toe . Da ! Worker.” commenting on the breakdown of the talks, says that the chances of solving Britain's food problems from non-dollar sources have been thrown away by the British Government’s political attitude to the Soviet Union.

■The ‘‘Manchester Guardian” says in a leading article that the failure of Britain and Russia to agree on mutual trading will “widen the breach in Europe as a whole.”