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)
L'udovit Hallon - Miroslav Londák: Sources and Possibilities of Research on Slovak-Austrian Economic Relations after the Second World War
Sources and Possibilities of Research on Slovak-Austrian Economic Relations... take part in foreign currency operations with foreign countries on the basis of cooperation with banks in Vienna. However, after 1970 this proposal was forgotten with other attempts at reforms. The companies in individual sectors, among them also state trading companies, were formed into trusts, so-called production- economic units, in the 1960s. Until 1990 they were headed by general boards of directors, which statistically mapped the development of foreign goods exchange of each particular sector, regularly sent out representatives on foreign trade journeys and to international trade fairs. In the 1960s also Slovak governmental economic authorities went through organizational changes. The process of changes culminated in 1969 in connection with the new state organization of Czechoslovakia. After 1960 the Department of Trade vanished. Until 1964 the trade resort in Slovakia lacked an independent central management body. This was renewed in 1964 under the name of Department of Slovak National Council for Trade. The powers of the new body were limited to domestic trade of Slovakia. In 1969 Czechoslovakia became a federal country, consisting of the two republics with separate governments and parliaments. At the same time Slovakia obtained independent resort ministries, among them also the Ministry of Trade. The proposals to extend the powers of the Slovak Ministry of Trade to foreign trade relationships remained only a theoretical consideration. Despite this fact archive materials of the said economic bodies and companies active in Slovakia in the 1960s - 80s create a picture of Austrian-Slovak trade. The Slovak National Archive has files of the Slovak Ministry of Trade and other economic resort ministries at disposal. However, of greater value concerning foreign trade are materials of the Slovak National Archive: for instance, 55 general boards of managements of individual sectors and some foreign trade companies from the end of the 1950s to 1990. We can find here a file of the trust of the department stores Prior, in which three companies were specialized in foreign trade, as well as files of the foreign trade companies Petrimex and Slovart or the foreign trade association Intercoop. The files of the named companies involving about 320 bundles and materials of all general boards of directors are accessible. After 1990 some foreign trade companies were changed into companies (Incheba, Kerametal, Martimex, Omnia, Technopol, Transpetrol). The agenda of the time before 1990 is placed in company archives of the mentioned companies. These archives should be accessible on the basis of official request. Another key source of information are the files of the subsidiary of CSOB in Bratislava from 1967 to 1989. According to preliminary agreements with the management of the subsidiary, these files are accessible for us. For research of some aspects of foreign-trade relationships also archive materials of central bodies of the Communist Party are important, mainly those of economic character, such as files of the National Economic Board of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia. 301
