Moscow bloc launches plan to catch up with West

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 6

Moscow bloc launches plan to catch up with West

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Union and nine Communist allies launched a 15-year programme yesterday to modernise their economies in areas from microelectronics to atomic energy to try to close the technology gap with the West. Prime Ministers of the 10-nation trade bloc, Comecon, signed the accord, prepared during the last 12 months by Soviet officials, after a two-day summit meeting in Moscow. The programme calls for more co-operation between Comecon States in developing technology, specialisation by individual membercountries in certain branches of industry, increased labour productivity, and higher-quality goods.

Soviet scientists said that the programme concentrated on five specific areas — electronics, automation of production, atomic energy, wider use of new industrial materials, and biotechnology, especially as applied to agriculture. Comecon groups the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Mongolia, Cuba, and Vietnam.

The Soviet Union, whose economy dominates the bloc, has long pushed for greater economic integration among its members. The new agreement envisages direct co-operation on areas from research and development to production. Gury Marchuk, chairman

of the Soviet State Committee for Science and Technology, said that Comecon would create a new sixnation organisation, called Interrobot, to supervise production of industrial robots in the bloc.

Mr Marchuk said that research and production under the new accord would be financed partly by outlays from individual countries and partly by pooled funds, which would be created for big projects requiring bigger resources. The pact covers 15 years and runs in conjunction with bilateral accords on science and technology that the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies have signed since 1984. The Comecon countries

■ also signed an agreement yesterday on co-operation in i atomic energy to supply ■ cities with heat and elecI tricity. The accord reflected a ; drive by the Soviet Union and its allies to turn int creasingly to atomic energy i instead of oil for their fuel I needs. The Soviet Union is - by far the group’s largest ■ oil producer, but output has I stagnated since late 1983. ! Mr Marchuk said that the Soviet Union would continue to fulfil its obligations for ; supplying oil to its Eastern i European allies despite * fluctuations in world mari . ket prices. Last year Mos- ■ cow made it clear to its ; allies that they could not expect increased deliveries ; up to 1990.