Borvendég Zsuzsanna: Fabulous Spy Games. How international trade networks with the West developed after 1945 - A Magyarságkutató Intézet Kiadványai 24. (Budapest, 2021)
‘FABULOUS’ IN HUNGARY - The role of Frankfurt
'FABULOUS' IN HUNGARY their total investments from capitalist countries in 1958 and the previous years, this share dropped to 20-22 percent in 1959. According to the cited report, the German partner did indeed respond to the restrictions: during the negotiations in December 1959, the Hungarian partner managed to raise the export quota for agricultural produce by 50 million German marks. The decision-makers at the Ministry for Foreign Trade told the companies that they were satisfied, but also warned them that, although there was no need to reduce the West Germans’ share, they should make sure to maintain the levels achieved so as not to give West German firms too great an influence over the Hungarian economy.291 291 Ibid. p. 189 292 Ibid. p. 191 This endeavour proved unfeasible due to a number of circumstances that were either cumbersome or downright impossible to change. The most important of these circumstances was the historical-geopolitical one explained earlier, as a consequence of which many more people spoke German both in the industry and in trade than English or French. In addition to the language issue, Hungarian technical specialists were much more familiar with German technology, so they used German parts and components to begin with when designing a machine or device, rendering West German imports unavoidable. We should also add the famous German precision into the equation, which firms made even more attractive thanks to their flexibility and by providing favourable price and delivery conditions, as well as large-scale direct marketing given that most experts travelling to Hungary arrived from the western parts of Germany. Thanks to the uninterrupted business relationships between the two countries, more than 2,000 businessmen from West Germany visited Hungary in 1959.292 The fact that 43 percent of the approved individual exhibitors at the Budapest Industrial Fair in 1960 were West German firms should give some sense of the influence of German industry. As a result, the Ministry of Foreign Trade called on the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce to reject the applications of 34 companies and invite companies representing 109
