SOVIET TRADE FIGURES

Taranaki Daily News, 31 July 1931, Page 11

SOVIET TRADE FIGURES

A £70,000,000 ERROR. London, May 29. The correspondent of the NewsChroniclO telegraphs the trade returns issued at Moscow for the first quarter of the year. These show that the exports declined by £-1,100,000, while imports increased by £2,200,000, giving an adverse trade balance of £5,625,000. Exports totalled £19.500,000 and imports £25,125,Q00. Nearly £17,300,000 worth of machinery was imported. Agricultural exports, chiefly grain, decreased from £6,000,000 to less than 000.Oil, manganese, coal and iron ore fell from £4,500,000 to £3,650,000, but the “food industry’’ increased from £2,500,000 to over Furs, daviare, and fish furnished £2,000,000 'worth of exports; “cattle products”—hides, etc. — £1,625,000; timber over £800,000; miscellaneous rubber goods, glass, porcelain and rugs £280,000. This decline in trade and Commissar Kuihishef’s declaration in a speech on the Five-Year-Plan that the cost of carrying out the Industrial Plan for 1931 has been under-estimated by as much as £70,000,000, help to explain the drastic order to all State undertakings to pay their own way, which is resulting in a general big rise in prices. For instance, an order raises the cost of postage from 24d to 4d, although local letters are still delivered for Ijd. Telegraph rates are doubled to 4d a word, plus a fee of 5d per telegram. The cost of mowy orders is raised proportionately.