Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Dieter Stiefel, Alice Teichova (Hrsg.): Sonderband 9. „Zarte Bande” – Österreich und die europäischen planwirtschaftlichen Länder / „Delicate Relationships” – Austria and Europe’s Planned Economies (2006)
Pekka Sutela: Finnish Trade with the USSR: Why Was It Different?
Pekka Sutela The folklore of Finnish - Soviet economic relations tells of three safeguards adopted early on. First, and this is supposed to go back to President Paasikivi, the share of the USSR in Finnish exports should not be higher than 20 percent.36 Second, from the very beginning, Finnish policy aimed at avoiding the complete dependence of any sectors or major companies on sales to the USSR. Even the largest Finnish conglomerates - private or state-owned - have usually sold at most some 10-15 percent of their output to the USSR.37 The general policy of avoiding sectoral dependency continued until the early 1980s, when the sudden increase in Soviet demand seems to have overwhelmed at least two Finnish manufacturing sectors, shipbuilding and certain branches of light industry, footwear in particular. Over the period 1982-1985, some 60-80 percent of Finnish ships were sold to the USSR, while in footwear the share was around 40-50 percent. Five years later, the sales of these sectors to the USSR had collapsed, as had many of the companies involved.38 And third, reference has been made - though it is impossible to say how seriously - to a 20/80 rule. A fifth of a company's exports should go to the USSR, bringing four fifths of all export profits. 7 The demise of clearing in Finnish-Soviet trade After the USSR had announced its intention to abolish the existing trade regime in its foreign trade with the CMEA-area, a similar announcement in the summer 1990 concerning clearing trade with Finland should have been no surprise. Many Finnish export industries, however, campaigned for a continuation of clearing or at 36 1 have been unable to locate this alleged rule in Paasikivi's published writings, including his diary, but he did write in his diary on 12 November 1953, after the Soviet share had been (immediately after the end of the war reparations) slightly over 20 percent: „It has been a bad thing that we are currently so dependent on trade with the Soviet Union. We have to take care that our dependence on the Soviet Union regarding trade does not increase but decreases. I reminded that I have repeatedly spoken about the danger that is imbedded in economic dependence from Russia“. Paasikivi, Juho Kusti: J.K. Paasikiven päiväkirjat 1944-1956. Toinen osa, 25.4.1944- 10.4.1956. Helsinki-Porvoo-Juva 1986, p. 725. 37 A marketing director for a major forestry group characterises exports to the USSR as a „titbit" due to a wide product assortment (including goods that could not be sold to other markets), good profitability and a flexible shipment schedule, but adds that the share of Soviet exports was not to rise above ten per cent, due to the uncertainties of centralised trading. See H ei k k i n en , Sakari: Paperia maailmalla. Suomen Paperitehtaiden yhdistys Finnpap 1918-1996. Helsinki 2000, p. 388. 38 Foreign trade statistics for 1985 reveal (on the 7-digit level of CCCP-classification) 133 items for which the share of Soviet exports was over 90 percent of all exports. These items add up to 38 percent of total exports to the USSR. Fifteen of them are important, each accounting for more than FIM 100 mill, in exports. Five of the important items are different kinds of ships and the rest are products of the food, chemical, paper, clothing and electro-technical industries. Of the total exports of these 15 items, 96 percent went to the USSR in 1985. In 1985-1991 the exports of these items dropped by 83 percent, which is even more than the overall drop in Finnish exports to the Soviet Union. For these commodities, the collapse of the Eastern market was only to a very limited extent - six percent - compensated by exports to the West. (Kaj as t e : Soviet Trade). 326
