Soviet Aid Hard Counter

AFTER the success of his officials, at Paris, in soliciting aid from the Western Consortium, the Finance Minister took it upon himself to visit the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia on a similar mission. The main purpose of his mission, how-ever, was not to seek more credit but to try to secure better terms of aid from the eastern bloc of countries. Chavan thus attempted to persuade the Soviet authorities that they should give non-project aid and further ease the terms of debt servicing from the present standard of a 2 per cent rate of interest and a 12-year repayment period.