East-West Trade and Economic Relations

Abstract

Economic relations between socialist and industrially developed capitalist countries play an important part in world politics. Although an arena of economic competition between two different social systems, they provide, nevertheless, considerable mutual economic benefits. East-West business cooperation creates significant material preconditions for amelioration of the global political environment and the pursuit of the policy of détente, though it strongly depends on prevailing trends (détente — or anti-détente-oriented). The Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975) outlined a broad constructive programme of expansion of economic relations between countries of the two systems, but its implementation faced resistance from those circles that would like to bury détente and revive the ‘cold war’.