NOTE 57 Britain, which through their4 durrettc^ ^oficy have aggravated its economic diflictfltics at the height of the sterlii^ crisis. Turftmg to the impact of foreigw monopoly ca^it^l oh the economies of developing countries, th^ report throws a smokescren around the trui nature of the new, modern form of colonialism termed "neocolonialism", and to present certain of the factors in the most favourable light, to make it acceptable to the developing countries. While neocolonialism has a number of economic levers at its disposal, exceptionally important among these are direct investments like mines, petroleum fields, factories, commercial and banking establishments or plantations owned by foreign monopolies in other countries, chiefly in former colonies and dependencies of the imperialist countries. Direct investment offers foreign capital an incomparable opportunity for broad penetration into economies of relatively underdeveloped countries and often lead to the domination of other countries by the big foreign monopolies. This form of monopoly capital over entire branches of the developing countries' economies continues at present. Essentially, the report points out fKat in the capitalist world the monopolies industrial and banking, national, transnational, and international, are becoming one of the most important driving forces of integration. Certain Western economists keep insisting that private investments abroad are the most important types of capital export and should so be regarded, and that the government's function is primarily to aid the activities of private concerns in foreign lands. Direct; private foreign investment has been the target of severe criticism in virtually all of the poorer developing countries during the postwar period, and has been identified with colonialism and "Yankee" or Western imperialism. It has also come tinder increasing attack from both official and unofficial quarters in these countries, Capital Export for Development ? Nowadays, some economists arc busy advertising the idea that foreign investments supply th€ developing countries with funds to finance their economic development and increase their savings; actively aid the creation of new productive facilities and enterprise in these countries; and thus lead to the speedy overcoming of their economic backwardness. How much truth, to begin with, is there in the allegation that the export of capital by the industrial capitalist states finances the economic development of the underdeveloped countries? Divorced from any philan^ thropic considerations, the monopolies invest money abroad exclusively for the sake of profits, and even if a share of these profits is generally used to increase such foreign investments (rein vested, 4n other words), the final aim is to transfer such profits from foreign investments to the lending country ^nd let them accumulate there. As a result, the flow of capital from the lending states to the economically underdeveloped countries soon releases ^ powerful counterflow of profits earned in the latter.