NEW COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT

Southland Times, Issue 23782, 1 April 1939, Page 7

NEW COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT

FRANCE AND RUMANIA TO SIGN PACT INCREASED PURCHASES OF PETROL PARIS, March 30. France and Rumania will tonight sign a commercial agreement under which France doubles her purchases of Rumanian petrol and reduces the duties on Rumanian produce. All Reichsbank shares held abroad are being recalled instantly and the holders indemnified, states a message from Berlin. Dr Walther Funk. Minister of Economics, addressing the Reichsbank, appealed for the resumption of the trade talks with England and France. He described the German-Rumanian treaty as a pioneering act by which the forces of nature would be mobilized, bringing to the surface Rumania’s natural resources, increasing her productive energies and living standards, and improving Germany’s export possibilities and raw material position. “We will not permit our economy to be dependent on internationally manipulated currency policies,” he said, adding that Germany was a desirable economic partner and that world economy could not do without her. Mr R. S. Hudson, President of the Board of Trade, who has had talks with Warsaw and Moscow on trade matters, arrived at Helsingfors (Finland) today, states a British official wireless message from Rugby. He called on the Foreign Minister (M. R. Holst) and Minister of Finance, and at a luncheon at the British Legation met prominent industrialists and business men interested in trade with Britain.