Russians Get More Consumer Goods

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30976, 4 February 1966, Page 13

Russians Get More Consumer Goods

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter— Copyright) MOSCOW, Feb. 3. Economic changes in Russia are bringing changes in diet, too. The potato, for instance, long a favourite food of every Russian, is losing its popularity.

is losing its popularity.

Russian housewives bought 9 per cent less potatoes last year than in 1964, according to official statistics issued in Moscow.

At the same time they bought 17 per cent more fruit. Consumer goods show the most startling changes in the new figures, which reveal a one-tenth increase in retail trade turn-over, compared with 1964. Russians bought 49 per cent more refrigerators, 26 per cent more television sets, and 22 per cent more washing machines, but the figures show that the decline in private car-buying is continuing. There were no actual figures for any of these goods, as usual, making it hard to compare the well-being of the average Russian worker with his Western counterpart. The new emphasis on the consumer, as well as on agriculture, benefited most of all the nation’s collective farmers, whose income rose by 16 per cent last year. The main reasons for this were a big rise in prices paid by the State for their produce and a relaxation of restrictions on private trading.