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finances. It was a declaration stating that the payment was not used for transactions that
would be in conflict with the American regulations on the trade between the East and the
West.
43
The American pressure restricted the possibility of using transit from third countries
and Swiss re-export of the embargoed goods to such an extent that it was actually eliminating
this trading method as a source of raw materials and technical and technological know how.
44
It also became one of the major factors of the further marked decrease of Czechoslovak
import from Switzerland in 1952.
The second meeting of the mixed Czechoslovak-Swiss governmental commission was
concluded by a protocol signed in Bern on 12 May 1952. The volume of the quotas of goods
totaled 2.2 billion Czechoslovak Crowns; 1.2 billion was to be the volume of Czechoslovak
export and the volume of import was to be lower by 130 million. The structure of the agreed
exchange of goods did not change in any fundamental manner. The rationale report for the
government stated that the import of investment commodities, special apparatuses, bearings,
chemicals as well as aluminum and aluminum semi-finished products was ensured.
45
The
declining volume of the trade exchange was confirmed by the third meeting of the mixed
commission held in Prague on 15 – 25 April 1953, where a reduction of the quotas defined in
the quota lists by approximately 15 percent was agreed. Czechoslovakia was reducing the
deliveries of coke, iron and steel, which were in short supply in Czechoslovakia.
The result of the decrease of Czechoslovak export, combined with the necessity of
strategic economic imports, was a constantly passive balance of the Czechoslovak foreign
trade in relation to Switzerland. This was clearly worsening the almost desperate
Czechoslovak lack of valuable currencies, which resulted in the sale of a part of the golden
reserves of the Czechoslovak State Bank, mentioned at the beginning of this paper. The gap
between import and export was constantly widening until 1953. The unfavorable trend was
not significantly changed even by a change of the structure of the goods imported to
Czechoslovakia, in which the quickly increasing share of raw materials was to be
compensated by reducing the import of consumer goods and food (see appendix no. 6). The
year 1953 was the year of the deepest decline in the mutual trade exchange in the 1940'ies and
43
The text of the statements accompanying the remittances was as follows: Der Unterzeichnete bestätigt hiermit,
dass obgenannter Zahlung weder direkt noch indirekt geschäftliche oder private Transaktionen zu Grunde liegen
welche im Widerspruch mit den US-Bestimmungen betreffend den West-Osthandel stehen, und dass darin im
Speziellen keine Chinesischen oder Nord-Koreanischen Interessen involviert sind. Enclosure to letter of
Czechoslovak embassy in Bern to MFT, ibidem, no. 319/v. NM.
44
Ch. Späti, o.c., p. 273.
45
Report on negotiations of mixed commission for government meeting, 6. 6. 1952, NAP, PMO, carton 1395,
no. 15141/52.
IEHC 2006
SESSION 101
Cold War and Neutrality: East-West Economic Relations in Europe
18
1950'ies. The import converted to the new currency decreased to 106 million and the export
dropped down to mere 90 million Czechoslovak Crowns (see appendix no. 4).
The unclear legal issues and new facts in mutual relations brought a new trade
agreement signed on 24 November 1953, which replaced the 1927 framework agreement and
the system of annexed protocols. But that is another separate story.
46
Czechoslovak-Swedish Economic Relations
The trade relations between Czechoslovakia and Sweden after World War II were also
building on the pre-war tradition. The trade and payment agreement of 18 April 1925
47
was
implicitly recognized by both parties as valid It was important that it had not been terminated.
By that agreement, Czechoslovakia and Sweden mutually provided a most favored nation
clause.
48
However, the Czechoslovak party was extremely interested in regularizing mutual
relations under the new circumstances. Especially the industrial sector
was highly dependent
on the renewal of Czechoslovak-Swedish trade relations. The Ministry of Industry had to
ensure import of Swedish ores, which were deemed to be necessary for successful post-war
reconstruction because in some large enterprises like the former Rothschild iron works in
Vítkovice, it was impossible to replace this ore with some other one because the technology
there was adjusted to the high-quality Swedish ore already since the period of Austro-
Hungarian monarchy.
Therefore the Ministry of Industry sent its representatives to Sweden in order to
quickly ensure deliveries of ores. In autumn 1945, the representatives visiting Sweden
prepared the ground for conclusion of an inter-state agreement on the regulation of trade
relations. The draft agreement, which the delegation of the Ministry of Trade brought from
Stockholm was approved by the Swedish party beforehand and the Swedish party even
immediately started to implement this agreement. Due to the lack of time, the payment issues
were not covered in the agreement. The advantage of immediate implementation, however,
involved the necessity to forego further negotiations about partial modifications of the
agreement and to accept it as it had been drafted because otherwise there was the risk that the
46
Ch. Späti, o. c., p. 286-287.
47
No. 50/1925, no. 119/1925 in Sbírka zákon a na ízení republiky eskoslovenské.
48
The situation report on the current status of bilateral general trade agreements with the GATT member states
(a material for the Minister's council), 22. 3. 1954, NAP, MFT, secretariate of the minister, uninventoried
materials, no. 201.952/54-MO/2.