PART ONE

Introduction and Summary

Main Perspectives

Background and Objectives

This Compendium presents comprehensive data on the value of foreign trade of individual East European countries during the period 1946-69. The data are variously arranged in aggregative terms, by country or region of origin and destination, or by structure according to a number of commodity classifications.

Each table is a complete or abridged reproduction of data contained in a more comprehensive computerized system of tables, the IDRC Soviet and East European Foreign Trade Data Bank, which is housed at the International Development Research Center of Indiana University. The Data Bank represents a collection of figures some three times as large as that presented here, the difference consisting mainly of additional commodity detail.

Nine East European countries are documented individually: the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Albania. The first seven are regular members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (variously identified as CEMA, CMEA, or COMECON). Yugoslavia has observer status in that organization, and Albania was a member until the early 1960s. The only non-European CEMA member is Mongolia, whose trade is not documented here as a reporting country.

Trade flows of the nine countries represent about 11 percent of world trade. In 1970, the region's total exports and imports each amounted to more than $30 billion.

Detailed and comparable time series on much of this trade have been practically inaccessible in the West until now. Moreover, the available data have often been highly aggregated, incomplete in scope, or deficient in details on composition. Our knowledge of East Europe's international commerce has lagged considerably behind the economic and political importance of the region, with comparatively little known about either general patterns or the possibly unique yet significant aspects. As one result among many, projections of trends have not had adequate empirical foundation. Even East-West trade, for which statistics are generally available from Western sources, cannot be fully assessed in the absence of detailed information on trade within East Europe, with which it is clearly interconnected.

Study of the trade of East European countries at the International Development Research Center is part of a larger project on the economic development of East Europe, which has underscored the need for a systematized, standardized set of trade statistics for the region. The fact that no such statistical compilation exists has prompted the considerable scale of the present undertaking. The result, incorporating the effort of several man-years of compilation, processing, and analysis, is a uniquely comprehensive collection of East Europe's trade, especially designed to facilitate detailed intraregional and international comparisons.

All data except those on East-West trade have been obtained or derived from primary East European sources. Statistics on East-West trade have been assembled from Western sources, which are more comprehensive and standardized than their East European counterparts.

Major Contributions

The most distinctive feature of the Compendium is its provision of multiple sets of standardized data on commodity composition. First, the data have been standardized according to the nomenclature in which they were originally compiled by the national statistical offices of the reporting countries: the CEMA Trade Nomenclature (CTN) or the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC). Second, CTN data have been converted when possible into SITC; both CTN and originally reported SITC data have been transformed by special procedures into the United Nations' new trade classification, Broad Economic Categories (BEC). The last marks a substantial advance over other trade classifications in that its aggregates represent more homogeneous groupings and because they have been rendered much more comparable with commodity categories in the standardized national income accounts. The Compendium is the first publication to present foreign trade statistics by the BEC classification.

The three classification systems are outlined beginning on page 5 below and compared in detail in Appendix A. Thus statistical information on East Europe's trade, which has long trailed behind that of most other regions, can now be said to be more up to date in this respect than that currently available for the rest of the world.

Geographic distributions have also been standardized and disaggregated. Export as well as import trade flows for each of the nine East European countries are shown with each of the others (except Albania), as well as with groups of countries covering the rest of the world.

The most detailed geographic documentation throughout the Com - pendium is for intra-East-European trade, mainly because East Europe is the dominant trade region for all CEMA countries. In addition, such data have been less readily available in the West than information on East-West trade, hence were more needed in detail.

The Compendium has been organized so that it can serve both as an easy-to-use reference volume and as an extensively documented technical treatise on its subject. Part One, Introduction and Summary, is a concise guide to the basic statistical tables, which are presented in Part Two. Part Three outlines the methodology used in constructing the tables, with detailed notes and documentation concerning the nature, sources, and organization of the data in Part Two.

Part Four consists of appendices on topics of special interest. They include a comprehensive discussion of the three trade classification systems, in Appendix A; a review of how these systems have been reconciled by new conversion procedures, in Appendix B; and a discussion of valuation problems and their bearing on international comparisons, in Appendix C. Appendix D provides a detailed explanation of statistical definitions used by East European countries in compiling their trade series and compares them with statistical standards recommended by the United Nations.

Appendix E deals with an important but little-known problem: the existence of large unspecified residuals in U.S.S.R. trade. The residuals in commodity composition, as well as in trade with less developed countries, suggest that military-strategic items being commercially traded may be partly or entirely excluded from commodity and country breakdowns.

Appendix F presents data on trade between individual East European countries and the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

Appendix G identifies a set of constant-price series, which the author has calculated from official sources for all East European countries except Rumania and Albania. (These data have been published separately as an International Development Research Center's Working Paper.* Finally, Appendix H provides information about the system and availability of the Center's computerized Data Bank.

Statistical Contents

The data presented in Part Two are organized into 252 one-page tables, which have been photoreduced from computer printouts. The tables are grouped into five sets, each termed a Series, with the following contents:

I. Total Trade by Origin and Destination (Series I) shows, for each East European country and the European CEMA group as a whole, total export trade and import trade with individual East European countries (except Albania) and with three areas covering the rest of the world: other centrally planned economies (OCPEs),** more developed countries (MDCs), and less developed countries (LDCs).

*Paul Marer, “Soviet and East European Foreign Trade Series in Constant Prices,” International Development Research Center Working Paper (Bloomington, Ind., 1972).

**The term “centrally planned economies” is used throughout to denote European and Asian communist countries, including Yugoslavia. Although “centrally directed economies” may be more apt, the former expression is retained because its abbreviation, “CPEs,” is much more familiar.

Subtotals are shown for the trade of each East European country with all centrally planned economies (East Europe plus OCPEs) and all economies not centrally planned (MDCs plus LDCs).

II. Commodity Composition of Total Trade (Series II) shows, for each East European country and the European CEMA group as a whole, export trade and import trade by commodity categories according to as many as possible of three classification systems. CTN series are shown for all East European countries except Yugoslavia. SITC series are shown for the U.S.S.R., as converted from CTN data; and for Hungary and Yugoslavia, as originally reported. BEC series are shown for the U.S.S.R. and Bulgaria, as converted from CTN data; and for Yugoslavia, as converted from SITC.

III. Commodity Composition of Trade by East European Trade Partner (Series HI) shows, for the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, and Poland, export trade and import trade with individual East European countries and the European CEMA group as a whole, disaggregated by commodity classifications. These series are shown according to CTN, as originally reported, and BEC, as converted from CTN data.

IV. Commodity Composition of Trade with Total West Europe (Series IV) shows, for each European CEMA country and for the European CEMA group as a whole, export trade and import trade both according to SITC, as compiled from West European sources by the United Nations, and according to BEC, as converted here from SITC data. Appendix F presents comparable recent information on trade with the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia.*

V. Special Supplement (Series V) shows, for Hungary and Poland, export trade and import trade with combined centrally planned economies and combined non-centrally planned economies, classified by CTN. Comparable time series for other East European countries are not available.

Main Prospective Uses of the Data

The presentation of materials has been designed to facilitate international comparisons, hence all values are shown in current U.S. dollars. Since data from East European sources are originally given in national-currency “devisa” units — special units of account used by East European countries to record foreign trade statistics — these data have had to be converted to dollars, using official exchange rates in the absence of a preferable alternative. Since East-West trade data were taken from U.N. or OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) publications, they had already been converted to dollars from Western currencies, again at official exchange rates.

*Commodity composition of East Europe's trade with LDCs has not been compiled. Only fragmentary information on this score is available from either East European or LDC sources, and much of this has already been published in the West. See James R. Carter, The Net Cost of Soviet Foreign Aid (New York: Praeger, 1969); Carole A. Sawyer, Communist Trade with Developing Countries (New York: Praeger, 1966); Baard R. Stokke, Soviet and East European Trade and Aid in Africa (New York: Praeger, 1967); Vassil Vassilev, Policy in the Soviet Bloc on Aid to Developing Countries (Paris: Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1969); and Jozef Wilczynski, The Economics and Politics of East-West Trade (New York: Praeger, 1969).

In using the data, it is important to recall that trade prices of East European countries often diverge systematically from world market prices. Hence dollar values obtained by official exchange rate conversions are not unequivocally comparable with those obtained similarly for Western countries (see Appendix C).

By presenting the study of the trade of each East European country with each of the others and with uniformly defined groups of other countries, the statistics provide a new tool for linking research on centrally planned economies with mainstream research on foreign trade elsewhere. Although the commodity classes or years for which data could be obtained are still not complete for any country, one can point to numerous topics which can now be explored. The following illustrative list by no means exhausts the possibilities.

Balance-of-trade ratios can be calculated, by country or region, to show where trade is balanced bilaterally, for annual or longer periods, or to document traditional or chronic surplus and deficit areas. Rates of growth and stability of trade in individual East European countries or in the region as a whole can be compared both at much more disaggregated levels than heretofore and with respect to a broader international range of other areas.

Differences in the growth rates of trade between individual East European countries, or with West Europe and other parts of the world, can be associated with commodity composition; and such relationships can be compared with those holding for other regions.

The U.S.S.R.'s role as a supplier of raw materials and as a market for the manufactures of individual East European countries can be explored in considerable economic and geographic depth, as can the extent to which East Europe competes with other suppliers on West European markets.

For the first time comparisons can be made between SITC and BEC aggregates, such as primary products and processed goods, for a great number of trading partners and flows.

Standardization of Trade Classifications

Three Classification Systems

All CEMA countries record commodity composition of trade according to CTN. However, since they do not publish this information in full, considerable effort is needed to standardize composition of total trade and trade by East European partner according to this nomenclature if maximum comparability is to be achieved. The rule followed here was that the attempt should be made for all CEMA countries for which an average of about 80 percent of trade was specified according to given or assignable CTN codes. This involved reconstructing the CEMA classification system — its code numbers and accompanying commodity descriptions — from a variety of East European sources (Appendix Table A-1) and examining their correspondence with published foreign trade statistics by commodity. In many cases the data were found to correspond with CTN classifications even though no codes had been assigned in the original sources.

Nearly all Western countries (including Yugoslavia) and international organizations record commodity composition according to SITC. Since this classification was developed from a customs point of view, its groupings are variously defined according to nature of material, final use, or degree of processing. Because the SITC aggregates have limitations for economic analysis, the U.N. Statistical Commission has been prompted to design a new nomenclature, the BEC, published in 1971.*

Whenever commodity detail in the available East European series was adequate, commodity composition of total trade and trade by partner was converted from original CTN or SITC to BEC by special procedures. These procedures have been designed here especially for data not specified in full commodity detail, as discussed in Appendix B. To assist the reader in using the tables in Part Two, the presentation here is limited to a brief description of each classification system.

The CEMA Trade Nomenclature system is a slightly modified version of the U.S.S.R. “Uniform Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Trade,” which was formally adopted by CEMA members in 1962. CTN is a seven-digit numerical code system, which groups commodities by industrial origin or end use. The first digit represents one of the highly aggregated commodity collections called categories; the second digit indicates component commodity aggregations called groups; the third, subgroups; and so on. The nine categories may be combined into four broad divisions, as shown in Table 1. Codes and titles at the threedigit level are shown in Appendix A.

The original CTN has undergone several revisions since 1962. Until the most recent (1971) edition, however, the revisions affected neither the basic system nor the definitions of categories or broad divisions. Hence for practical purposes, the present data (to 1969) are based on a fixed system.

The Standard International Trade Classification system, based on a five-digit commodity nomenclature, was originally prepared by the U.N. Secretariat in 1950. A 1960 revision essentially preserved the original structure at three-digit and higher (one- or two-digit) levels of aggregation. The first digit identifies ten commodity categories (or sections), which may be combined into two subtotals, as shown in Table 2. Codes and titles at the two-digit level are shown in Appendix A.

*United Nations, Statistical Office, “Classification by Broad Economic Categories,” Statistical Papers, Series M, no. 53 (New York, 1971).

Table 1

CTN Classification: Numbering and Titles of One-Digit Commodity Categories and Four Broad Divisions

Source: Slaliszlihai Szenile (Budapest, June 1964), pp. 652-58.

Table 2

SITC Classification: Numbering and Titles of One-Digit Commodity Categories and Two Subtotals

Source: United Nations, Statistical Office, “Standard Interna tional Trade Classification, Revised,” Statistical Papers, Series M, no. 34 (New York, 1961).

The Broad Economic Categories system, shown in Table 3, has 19 basic categories, which can be combined into 7 large economic classes. The basic categories can also be aggregated according to two additional criteria. One is by broad end use, divided into Primary Products and Processed Goods. The other, by SNA basic classes (SNA: System of National Accounts), is divided into Capital, Intermediate, and Consumption Goods. The composition of these aggregates is indicated in Table 3.

The twofold advantage of BEC over SITC has been mentioned earlier. The new nomenclature is expected to supplement and possibly supplant SITC. According to the U.N. Statistical Commission, “national classifications of this type will inevitably be attracted toward it and it will eventually tend to serve as a guideline and ultimately as a standard with wide use.”* Therefore BEC data are presented here whenever possible.

Interrelationships of the Three Systems

The transformation of CTN to BEC is facilitated by the relatively small number of basic categories in the BEC system and by structural similarities in the two nomenclatures. The 7 BEC large economic classes correspond very closely to CTN combinations of one-digit categories and two-digit groups (Appendix B). Furthermore, by combining BEC's 7 large economic classes into 4 “larger” economic classes, and after some quantitatively insignificant CTN adjustments (see Appendix B for details), one-digit CTN categories or broad divisions can be accurately regrouped into “larger”economic classes as shown in Table 4.

Conversion of CTN data to the smaller BEC basic categories for the purpose of reconstructing BEC aggregates by broad end use or SNA basic classes is much more difficult because the CTN data are often not given in adequate detail. Even here, however, it was possible to proceed by combining the original 19 BEC basic categories into 11 combined categories and preparing a CTN/BEC conversion key, which uses the most highly aggregated (lowest number of digits) CTN code that can be assigned accurately to one of these 11 combined categories. The key, cross-classified by BEC and CTN headings, is shown in Appendix B. In assigning one-, two-, or three-digit CTN codes to a BEC combined category, certain simplifying conventions and adjustments, also detailed in Appendix B, were necessary.

The transformation of SITC to BEC was effected by a similar conversion procedure. Indeed, the original BEC basic categories were originally designed by the U.N. to facilitate such matchup. An SITC/ BEC conversion key prepared and published by the U.N. assigns more than 600 two- to five-digit individual SITC codes to appropriate BEC categories. Unfortunately, the U.N. key could not be applied directly to convert East-West trade in SITC because this particular series is not available in requisite detail. However, item-by-item examination of the U.N. key reveals that a close approximation of BEC categories can be obtained in most cases from either two- or three-digit SITC. The transformation procedure described in Appendix B converts two- or three-digit SITC data to the same 11 BEC combined categories that were used for CTN/BEC conversions. A corollary advantage is that the resulting BEC series are also comparable with those obtained from CTN.

*United Nations, Statistical Office, “Classification by Broad Economic Categories,” Statistical Papers, Series M, no. 53 (New York, 1971), p. vii.

Table 3

BEC Classification: Numbering and Titles of 7 Large Economic Classes and 19 Basic Categories

Source: United Nations, Statistical Office, “Classification by Broad Economic Categories,” Slalislicnl Papers, Series M, no. 53 (New York, 1971), p. 1.

Table 4

Correspondence of BEC “Larger” Economic Classes with CTN Categories and Broad Divisions

*Includes CTN category 6, Live Animals Not for Slaughter, usually an insignificant component.

**Includes BEC category 7, Goods Not Elsewhere Specified.

The biases introduced by combining original BEC categories or by making simplifying assumptions in conversions are examined in Appendix B. The discussion there suggests that whenever original data were available in the detail required by the conversion keys, the resulting BEC series do in fact provide a reasonably reliable empirical foundation for analysis and for making international comparisons.

The feasibility of transforming CTN to SITC was also explored, since despite the limitations of SITC, it is still the nomenclature of Western trade statistics. However, to achieve adequate correspondence between CTN and SITC headings (so that accurate one-digit SITC categories could be obtained after conversion), a minimum of three-digit CTN would be necessary. Since no CEMA country publishes commodity composition fully in this depth, information at best being available in some mixture of one, two, and three digits, conversion to SITC is impossible or only approximate, depending on the proportion of trade specified in three-digit CTN.

The one country for which a CTN/SITC conversion seemed worth attempting was the U.S.S.R. (total trade only), using a sequentially defined three-part conversion key, detailed in Appendix B. The commodity composition of the U.S.S.R.'s total trade can therefore be compared directly with those of Western countries. However, the fact that the U.S.S.R. specifies less than 100 percent of its trade in CTN circumscribes the usefulness of all series, CTN as well as SITC and BEC.

The Major Statistical Series

Origin-Destination of Total Trade: 9 Countries Plus CEMA (Series I)

Full coverage for 1946-69, showing trade with East Europe (except Albania) by country and with the rest of the world by groups of countries has been possible for the U.S.S.R., East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Some years are missing before 1950 and 195154 or 1956-57 for Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania. For Albania, the full matrix is available only for 1950-64.

Practically all data have been obtained directly or derived indirectly from official statistical publications of reporting countries. Missing entries have been available in secondary sources in a few cases, such as national or international publications issued by an agency other than the reporting country's central statistical office. Secondary sources have been carefully screened to assure that the data were originally based on official sources and were consistent with the rest of the series. For practical purposes all data (in all five series) are based on official statistics.

As a general rule, trade shown for country groups (example: MDCs) or subtotals generated within a table (example: CPEs) represent the simple sums of trade documented for individual countries. Officially given subtotals were used only when not all national components were available. They are identified by code “G” (example: Table I. M.B, Bulgaria's imports from “Total Non-CPEs,” 1957-59 and 1961). Entries coded “W” indicate that data were obtained as a balancing estimate. For example, trade with “Total Non-CPEs” might be the difference between total imports and those from “Total CPEs” (example: Table I.M.B, 1952-54). Unrevised series that are known to have been superseded by revised data are included only if revised data were not available; these series are identified by the code “Z” (example: Table I.M.B, 1952-54).

If trade with one or at most a few countries was not available from a reporting country's sources, a missing entry could sometimes be obtained from trade-partner sources to complete an origin or destination row for a particular year. These entries are identified by code “X” (example: Table I.M.C, Czechoslovakia's imports from Yugoslavia, 1946). In a few instances, one- or two-year gaps in trade with country groups were filled by interpolated estimates, coded “Y.”

The geographic composition of the country groups outside East Europe has been standardized as fully as possible (exceptions are noted in the documentation). Thus, “Other Centrally Planned Economies” (OCPEs) includes Cuba uniformly since 1960, regardless of how that country is classified in national publications. Although trade with OCPEs until the early 1960s was dominated by trade with Mainland China, it (along with Albania) is not shown separately as a trade partner, since only a limited number of columns could be presented on a single page.

Presenting both export and import values, in contrast with the standard approach of showing either of these alone, allows for a fuller filling of statistical gaps by the user than would otherwise be possible, and also permits comparing “mirror” series, for example, U.S.S.R. reported exports to Czechoslovakia compared with imports from U.S.S.R. reported by Czechoslovakia.

Careful attention has been given throughout to consistency. The totals of country components or of subtotals by groups of countries have been checked to see that they equal “world” trade as given independently by a reporting country. Discrepancies among sources and other special problems are discussed in the notes to the individual tables, which also give full documentation of sources.

Appendix D takes up topics of special interest for international comparisons. The statistical practice of each East European country is discussed with respect to: (1) system of reporting trade (“general” vs. “special”), (2) commodity coverage of merchandise trade, (3) valuation procedures (c.i.f. vs. f.o.b.), and (4) system of identifying trade- partner country. In the special case of Hungary, whose trade is reported according to both the “general” and the “special” systems, it was possible to estimate re-export trade, which is also presented in Appendix D.

Commodity Composition of Total Trade: 9 Countries Plus CEMA (Series II)

For each CEMA country plus Albania an attempt has been made to obtain coverage by 9 CTN categories and 4 broad divisions throughout 1946-69. It was possible to assemble a full matrix by broad divisions for 1950 and continuously since 1955 for all but two CEMA countries and for CEMA as a group. The exceptions are East Germany, for which data are not available for 1956-59 and since 1965, and Rumania, which published no commodity detail for 1956-58. For some countries, CTN details are also available prior to 1950 and for 1951-54. For Albania, a full matrix can be presented only for 1950, 1955, and 1960-64. In almost all cases, structure by CTN categories is available whenever broad division totals are shown. In many cases broad division entries were not reported in official publications, but could be obtained by summing categories.

For the U.S.S.R. alone, the sum of categories is consistently less than the value of total trade independently given in the official statistics (Appendix E). Category totals for the U.S.S.R. have been obtained through computer aggregation of very detailed commodity specifications in CTN. For all other countries, the category or broad division totals as shown in official publications exhaust the given total.

Standardization of CEMA commodity statistics is based on the nomenclature in effect officially since 1962 and unofficially since 1954. As noted earlier, the revisions in the nomenclature between 1954 and 1970 have been minor and apparently have not affected the aggregative groupings shown here through 1969. Effective January 1971, a new edition of CTN has reclassified some commodities among broad divisions (Appendix A).

Comprehensive data on composition for the first postwar decade were not published until the mid-1950s. Since in all cases they represent new or revised series, consistency of aggregates over time is probably not a major problem. However, some CEMA countries have made special adaptations of the nomenclature; in one known case, Hungary, the comparability of aggregates would have been affected had we not made appropriate adjustments, as explained in the documentation to Table II.CTN.M.H.

Yugoslavia, which is not a CEMA member, has been compiling commodity composition in SITC since the early 1950s. It is presented here by one-digit commodity categories. The commodity compositions of two other countries are also shown in SITC: for Hungary, published officially since 1960, and for the U.S.S.R., converted here since 1946 from CTN data.

Adequate detail to transform original CTN or SITC data into BEC is available for three countries only: the U.S.S.R. since 1946, Bulgaria since 1955, and Yugoslavia since 1952. BEC tabulations on imports and exports of each of the countries are presented in two sets of tables: BEC-1 shows the 11 combined categories, and BEC-2 records broad end use and SNA basic classes aggregates.

Commodity Composition by East European Trade Partner: 3 Reporting Countries (Series III)

No CEMA country publishes comprehensive information on commodity composition of trade with partner countries. The best statistics available yield partner country series by CTN categories (each obtained through aggregation of two- and three-digit details), which are consistently less than the reported total trade with that country. Hence, the inclusion of a country in this series had to be determined judgmentally, on the basis of what was deemed to be an adequate feasible approximation. The criterion used was that no less than three-fourths to four- fifths of a CEMA country's trade with all East European partner countries could be specified in value terms, according to given or assignable CTN codes, over a period of at least ten years.*

Data on trade by partner and with CEMA as a group are presented for three countries: the U.S.S.R. 1946-68, Czechoslovakia 1958-68, and Poland 1958-68. For each of these countries both import and export trade with each East European country (except Albania) is shown. Hence, out of 28 possible bilateral channels (Albania excluded) between pairs of the eight East European countries, 18 have been recorded. The trade flows of these three countries with each other and with the rest of East Europe represent more than 90 percent of intra-East- European trade (Albania excluded).

*Yugoslavia, which publishes detailed SITC statistics by partner countries, has not been included since it trades primarily with West Europe.

Furthermore, in each instance it has been possible to provide the corresponding data by BEC. These are presented in two sets of tables: BEC-1 for the 11 combined categories and BEC-2 for the two sets of aggregates: by broad end use and SNA basic classes.

Commodity Composition of Trade with West Europe: 7 Countries Plus CEMA (Series IV)

This Series presents commodity composition of trade of individual CEMA countries and that of the European CEMA group as a whole with total West Europe by SITC categories for 1950-68 (East Germany 195168). Each country matrix is complete in that data are shown for all years and each annual sum of categories equals total trade, independently given. It has been possible to convert all SITC data in this Series to BEC, shown by combined categories as well as by the broad end use and SNA basic classes aggregates.

CEMA's trade with West Europe approximates its trade with all MDCs, since West Europe predominates within the MDC group. Additional information, involving the commodity composition of trade with the United States, Canada, and Japan, and total trade with Australia, is presented in Appendix F.

All SITC data in Series IV were obtained from U.N. publications. The number of commodity designations has varied over time, increasing from about 20 in 1950 to nearly 200 by 1964. In the tables presented here, only the 10 SITC categories and the primary versus manufactures subtotals are shown. These data were obtained from the Data Bank, where special procedures were required because of the variable number of commodity designations available from year to year.

Approximately 50 export and 50 import commodity groups (some representing combined commodity designations) have been included in the Data Bank for each CEMA country for most years. Each commodity group was assigned an SITC code (example: 271) or code span (271276). The number of commodity groups (degree of disaggregation processed) was determined, subject to data availability, by two objectives: to obtain both comparable two-digit SITC series and adequate SITC detail for conversion to BEC, the latter sometimes requiring three-digit information. Gaps in SITC data were overcome whenever possible through the use of estimates, largely based on distributions calculated for other years.

Two special problems warrant attention here. First, since Yugoslavia's trade is classified consistently with East Europe, it has been subtracted everywhere from the West Europe totals given by the U.N. U.N. publications include Yugoslavia with West Europe for all years except 1950-53 and 1964-65. Second, the U.N. has occasionally added a number of smaller countries to West Europe, because either they had started to trade with East Europe or relevant statistics had become available. Such newly included cases are Greece and Iceland since 1952, Portugal and Ireland since 1958, and Spain since 1964. Although no adjustment has been made here for this inconsistency, the distortion is believed to be small. In 1968 the proportion of CEMA trade with all countries added to the West Europe total subsequent to 1950 was only some 5 percent of total East-West trade, and this share was probably smaller in preceding years. There should be no appreciable effect on percentage composition during any year or on its changes over time.

Notes to this Series in Part Three present a detailed discussion of data problems; as noted, Appendix B describes SITC/BEC conversion procedures.

Commodity Composition of Trade with CPEs and Non-CPEs: 2 Countries (Series V)

This set of tables presents for Hungary and Poland commodity composition of trade with combined centrally planned economies (“socialist countries”) and combined non-centrally planned economies (“capitalist countries”). Composition is according to CTN broad divisions; the periods covered are 1949-69 for Hungary and 1950-69 for Poland.

The conventions and symbols used in presenting the major statistical series in Part Two are shown on p. 17; the key to the citation code for Parts Three and Four, on p. 277.