ANGLO-SOVIET TRADE TALKS TO RESUME

Chronicle (Levin), 21 June 1947, Page 2

ANGLO-SOVIET TRADE TALKS TO RESUME

(Special Correspondent.)

BRITISH ENYOY LEAYES FOR MOSCOW

Received Friday, 9.50 p.ni. LONDON, June 20. Accompanied by a number of officials from the Board of Trade, Mr. Haroid Wilson, Secretary for Overseas Trade, left Britain today to- resume the AngloRussian trade talks in Moscow next week wThich are expected to last twro or three weeks. This is his seeond visit. His departure follows the talks held with Mr. A. V. Klentsov, Soviet trade representative in Britain, who reeently returned from Moscow. Lists of commodities which the two countries wish to buy from #ach other were exchanged some time ago, and it is suggested that the British Government has now added the figures of minimum quantities to its previous list of items. The only figure which the olficial spokesman was able to confirm is one million tons of Russian wheat whic.li Britain hopes to be able to buy from this year's harvest. British imports oi grain and flour from the Soviet Union were a little more than 700,000 tons m 1938. . * Timber is the other principal item in the British list. The Soviet requirements include electrical and sawmill • machinery and bulldozers. Since bulb dozers have not hitherto been manufactured in Britain- in any quantity, Mr. Wilson in his earlier talks in Moscow asked for a firm order to be placed before agreeing to supply them. The Financial Times coiuments that Treasury officials are unable to say whether the British Government has yet replied to the Soviet request for a revision of the terms of payment for goods supplied under the civil supphes agreement of 1941. The Russian proposals communicated to London about a inonth ago were equivalent to a request for credit (for goods already supplied) estimated to amount to about £15,000,000 at an annual rate of interest of one and a half percent. and repayable in annual instalments the last of whicii would fall due sixteen years from the date of the signature of the revised agreement. The Board of Trade was. equally reticent about the results of the several informal discussions which Mr. Wilson reeently had with Mr. Ivlentzov.