Foreign Investment-Making Lollipops

in terms of any qualitative change in economic relations with the Soviet Union, The purpose of the Foreign Trade Minister's present trip to Moscow is thus not likely to be limited to signing the trade protocol but may extent to persuading the Soviet Union to fill in some of the gaps that have emerged following the suspension of US aid. Particularly affected has been our capacity to import commodities like fertilisers, cotton and newsprint. Excluding PL 480 assistance, US aid authorisation has averaged Rs 200 crores during the last four years. It is unlikely that the USSR would be able to supply all the commodities obtained by India from the US. For instance, the USSR cannot export cotton and newsprint unless it agrees to purchase these commodities from third countries to supply them to India. But there are such items as copper, zinc, nickel, sun-flower-seed oil, crude oil, rolled steel and mercury which the USSR is in a position to sup- ply without causing undue hardship to itself. India has recently handed over a supplementary list of goods available for export to the USSR. This has been done with a view to persuading the USSR to meet some of our additional requirements, over and above the trade plan provisions.