Comecon summit problems

Press, 8 July 1976, Page 8

Comecon summit problems

NZPA-Reuter East Berlin The Soviet bloc Prime Ministers are meeting in East Berlin today to seek new ways of meeting rising consumer demands in an increasingly harsh economic climate. The trading group of nine nations, Comecon, whose annual summit is set to last three days, is facing a sharp squeeze on manpower, capital, and raw material resources. Targets for higher living standards have been lowered for the remainder of the decade and politicians are calling for new efforts to increase productivity. The problems of adapting to the new climate have been starkly demonstrated in Poland, where the Government was hurriedly forced to cancel an essential package of food price rises recently after protests by workers. The speeches today are expected to spotlight the positive side of Comecon’s performance, and to emphasise that its growth over the last five years has been three times as fast as that of the West.

But the problems of infla tion and recession affecting the West are hitting the Comecon countries, too, forcing up import bills and killing hopes of an export boom.

Other problems on the Comecon horizon include increasing debts to the West, the need to agree on ways of specialising industrial production in member-countries, and uncertainties in agricultural performance. The Comecon summit last year, in Budapest, produced plans to ensure energy and raw materials supplies by exploiting Soviet resources with East European capital and technology.