State and trends of economic East-West relations — A German view

The trade of the Western industrial states with Eastern Europe has been the object of keen political interest in the past year or two although it accounts for no more than 5–6 p.c. of the total foreign commerce of the OECD countries. The current discussion about the future of the economic relations between East and West focuses on the greatly increased indebtedness of the East European countries to the West. The following review was presented as the introductory paper at a colloquium on the state and trends of East-West relations which was held at the end of February at the invitation of the Senator of Economic Affairs of Hamburg.     

Technologies of the future: Security and competition aspects

The SDI technology initiative, which is directed towards military ends, and its civil counterpart Eureka pose a challenge to relations between East and West and within the Western world. Professor Rolf Hasse analyses their implications for security and competition.     

GATT’s role in East-West trade

After a phase of stagnation in East-West trade lasting several years, both sides have more recently been at pains to intensify economic relations between East and West, the reasons being both economic and political. What part can the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) play in this regard?     

Entrepreneurial cooperation between East and West in the first half of the 1980s

The new forms of cooperation between Western firms and East European enterprises, begun with so much optimism in the 1970s, have disappointed the expectations placed in them. In both East and West the question as to the benefits and risks of this particular form of collaboration is now being posed. This article seeks to explain the present situation and to draw some conclusions concerning future trends.     

Trans-frontier capital links between socialist enterprises

It seems reasonable to assume that the East European efforts concerning the functional viability of strictly socialist International Economic Organizations will also improve the chances for East-West corporations in the medium term. The further development of these organizations deserves therefore to be watched. Impulses radiating from this field may make it possible to change over to a qualitatively new kind of economic relations between East and West.     

West-berlin: after the four-power agreement

After the representatives of the Four Powers had initialled the framework agreement on West-Berlin in principle, another major step had been completed for dismantling the confrontation between East and West. It has taken a full quarter of a century before Berlin, at last, is given the chance to expand its economy under normal conditions, and to benefit from its exposed geographical position.     

Aid programme of the neutrals

Foreign aid has often been considered as one aspect of the world-wide confrontation between East and West and one might therefore wonder to what extent the neutral European countries have an aid policy of their own reflecting their status of non-alignment. The following article tries to give an answer to this question by analysing the aid policies and efforts of Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.     

Keen competition in East-West trade

Parallel to the economic growth and the increase of the living standards in the Eastern bloc the import requirements of its member countries are rising, too. For this reason all Western industrial nations make increasing efforts to establish themselves in these markets with good future prospects or to maintain and extend traditional positions. However, trade between the East and the West is more difficult than among Western industrial States. The differing control of the economies causes a multitude of difficulties in opening new business connections and for transactions. These impediments are still increased by differing conceptions of the world. INTERECONOMICS interviewed Herr Alfree E. Schulz, Member of the Board of Directors of DEMAG Aktiengesellschaft, on the present situation of the West Germon Eastern trade.     

A basis for economic cooperation in Europe

The UN-Economic Commission for Europe, to which today the large majority of the economically most advanced states in the world belong, has in the 21 years of its existence done work that cannot be gauged merely by tangible results. The Commission has played a vital part in creating the essential climatic conditions for the economic reconstruction of Europe after the war. During the dark days of the “cold war” it remained the only functioning forum for a dialogue between East and West. Its activities range from the regulation of cross-frontier traffic, to researches into long-term economic developments in Europe, to the promotion of East-West trade and even to questions of scientific and technological cooperation, and as such the ECE sets an example of economic coexistence. At the beginning of the third decade of its existence the Commission, firmly rooted as it is in a well-balanced mixture of idealism and realism, can look to the future with confidence. On the occasion of the 23rd meeting of the UN/ECE, which ended in Geneva on the second of May, we discussed with its chairman, Dr Treu, some of the main problems of economic cooperation between Eastern and Western Europe.     

The role of multinationals in the NIEO

In the context of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) the developing countries are expressing more and more frequently a wish for stricter control over the multinational enterprises. What should be the features of a Code of Conduct for Multinationals?     

UN development strategy for the eighties

The recently held 11th Special Session of the UN General Assembly reached agreement on an international strategy for the Third Development Decade which is to be formally passed by the current 35th General Assembly. In the discussion it became obvious that the developing countries’ interest still focusses on a New International Economic Order. There are however grave doubts about the possibility of reaching, by institutional reforms, a real solution for the development problems to be faced in this decade.     

International raw material policy in the agricultural and industrial sphere

The demands in the sphere of raw material policy are a cardinal element of the “New International Economic Order” on which the developing countries are insisting. Dr Hermes, Secretary of State in the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, discusses the Common Fund and other issues concerning raw material policy from the German point of view.     

Oil from Chinese deposits

From 18–25 March the United Nations’ “International Meeting on Petroleum Geology” will take place in China, a country whose oil reserves up to the mid-sixties had been judged by foreign observers to be minute and the development of her oil sector of no major importance. Today, with an annual crude output of 106 mn tons, China already ranks ninth among the world’s oil producers. And, with the prospect of a further advance towards leadership among producers and exporters of the coveted energy material, the West is showing growing interest in China’s energy potential. How real is this prospect?     

Collective Self-Reliance: Concept and reality

The concept of Collective Self-Reliance (CSR) has been of increasing political importance since the early seventies in the North-South negotiations and also at the South-South conferences (of non-aligned and Group of 77 countries), especially in connection with the discussions on a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Development researchers in poor and rich countries have at the same time begun to pay more attention to the concept of Self-Reliance (SR) in both its individual and its collective dimension. The concept of Collective Self-Reliance is examined in the following article as are its chances of realization.     

A concept for an Open World Economy

One of the many new publications dealing with the reform of the International trade system is the report of the Trade Policy Research Centre “Towards an Open World Economy”. The following article analyses and criticlses the main proposals of the report.     

Reasons for Japan's low unemployment rate

Since the beginning of the seventies, most OECD member countries have suffered from a substantial increase in measured unemployment rates. A notable exception is Japan, whose official unemployment rate is far below observed figures in other countries. This article examines the reasons why Japan's unemployment record has been better than those of the USA and West Germany.     

Joint Venture Conflict: The Case of Thai International Joint Ventures

ABSTRACT

International Joint Ventures (IJVs) have become an important means of market entry for many firms, particularly those seeking entry into Asia (Lin and Germain, 1999 Lin, X. and Germain, R. 1999. Predicting international joint venture interaction frequency in U.S.-Chinese ventures. Journal of International Marketing, 7(2): 5–23. [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). As such, it is important to understand what causes some IJVs to fail and others to succeed. This study examines the relationship between partners' needs, commitment, control, and conflict between the IJV partners in a developing country of South East Asia. The findings revealed that IJV inter-party conflict was significantly influenced by all three variables, namely, partners' needs, commitment and control thereby providing support for previous research in a different national setting.     

UNCTAD VII-what is really at stake

The seventh United Nations Conference on Trade and Development will be held in Geneva in July 1987. Heinrich Dehn reviews the issues on the agenda and shows where the policies of the industrialised and developing countries need to be revised.     

The “pipeline” problem in bilateral financial cooperation

It has been observed since about 1976 that financial commitments to developing countries have been disbursed more slowly than in the past. At the same time there have been increasing complaints from recipients that the commitment, appraisal and disbursement procedures of the donor countries were excessively complicated, resulting in a delay of disbursements. The Western industrialized countries, both individually and jointly in the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, therefore initiated investigations into the importance to be assigned to this phenomenon as well as into the question of whether there are any possible ways of simplifying the administrative procedures. The following article sums up the results of such a study by the German Institute for Development Policy in respect of the Federal Republic of Germany.