The Soviet Union maintained this low level because it could draw upon a large energy and raw material base, and because it historically had pursued a policy of self-sufficiency.
In light of reduced political returns and domestic economic problems, the Soviet Union could ill afford ineffective disbursements of its limited resources.
[1] In the 1980s, the Soviet Union needed considerable sums of hard currency to pay for food and capital goods imports and to support client states.
Although the commissariat remained the controlling center, the regime established other organizations to deal directly with foreign partners in the buying and selling of goods.
GKNT negotiated technical cooperation agreements and monitored license and patent purchases and sales in order to introduce new technology into the Soviet economy.
The lack of direct contact between Soviet enterprises and their foreign customers or suppliers frustrated both parties by unnecessarily delaying contract negotiations and the specification of technical details.
In August of the same year, the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers adopted the decree On Measures for Improving Management of External Economic Relations," which outlined drastic steps to change the structure of the foreign trade bureaucracy.
The government granted direct foreign trade rights to twenty-one ministries and state committees, sixty-seven industrial enterprises, and eight interbranch scientific production complexes.
Optimistic about the economic effects of their new undertaking, Soviet officials declared that 85 to 90 percent of "the most important types of machinery" would meet world technical standards by 1990.
In a change from its previous duties, Vneshekonombank was required to administer new procedures dealing with Soviet firms that had recently acquired direct foreign trade rights.
According to this law, the government had the power to disband unprofitable businesses, and each ministry and its subordinate enterprises gained the responsibility for their own foreign trade activities.
Soviet oil exports to these countries bought machinery and equipment and industrial consumer goods, as well as political support without the expenditure of freely convertible foreign currency.
In 1989, Comecon comprised ten countries: the six original members—Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union—plus the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, which joined in 1950), Mongolia (1962), Cuba (1972), and Vietnam (1978).
This program stressed the self-sufficiency of Comecon countries in five key areas: electronics, automation of production, nuclear power, biotechnology, and development of new raw materials.
The Soviet Union possessed machinery, equipment, and technical know-how to help China develop its fuel and mineral resources and power, transportation, and metallurgical industries.
After a temporary shortage of hard currency in 1981, the Soviet Union sought to improve its trade position with the industrialized countries by keeping imports at a steady level and by increasing exports.
Much of the income earned from fuel exports to Western Europe was used to pay off debts with the United States, Canada, and Australia, from which the Soviet Union had imported large quantities of grain.
The Soviet Union sold most of its oil and natural gas exports for United States dollars but bought most of its hard currency imports from Western Europe.
[3] Amtorg handled almost all exports from the USSR, comprising mostly lumber, furs, flax, bristles, and caviar, and all imports of raw materials and machinery for Soviet industry and agriculture.
Such skills would increase the ability of the Soviet Union to export manufactured goods, and thus earn hard currency, and would improve its competitiveness on the world market.
The delegations declared that Soviet-American cooperation would be expanded in the areas of food processing, energy, construction equipment, medical products, and the service sector.
[29] In the mid-1980s, West European exports to the Soviet Union were marginal, less than 0.5 percent of the combined gross national product of countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Western Europe rejected the trade restrictions imposed by the United States after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the declaration of martial law in Poland in 1980.
The Soviet Union also proposed branching out into joint ventures in the chemical and wood chip industries, electronics, machine tools, and fish processing.
Major arms customers were concentrated in the belt of countries that stretches from North Africa to India, close to the Soviet Union's southern border.
In an effort to retain its share of Indian arms customers, the Soviet Union continued to offer India its most sophisticated weapons at even more attractive rates.
Late that year, the Soviet Union signed an agreement with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that restricted the amount of oil it could buy for reexport.
India was also the Soviet Union's sole significant Third World supplier of equipment and advanced technology, e.g., computers and copiers, much of which was produced by Indian subsidiaries of Western multinational corporations.
[1] When Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his report on the CPSU's economic policy on June 12, 1985, he noted that growth in exports, particularly machinery and equipment, was slow because the poor quality of Soviet goods prohibited them from being competitive on the world market.
Specifically, through upgraded production processes, the Soviet Union could export more competitive manufactured goods and decrease its dependency on energy and raw materials to earn hard currency.