INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION IN GDR AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES 49
inability to provide a comparable assortment of consumer goods, puts an unbeatable pressure on the leadership to increase efficiency. On the other hand, GDR's cultural and geographical closeness with FRG has also made GDR's leadership extremely wary of introducing measures which may result in any kind of political or economic instability. There exists no immediate crisis situation in the GDR to require major alteration in planning and management methods. In any case the viability of the Hungarian reforms or the proposed Soviet reforms is yet to be proved in unambiguous terms.
NOTES
1. The Soviet Union has shown a keen desire to enter the capitalist world market, which will naturally constrain its participation in CMEA division of labour.
2. Osnovhye Polozheniia was passed by the Central Committee Plenum in June 1987. For details see Hewett (1?88).
3. For a detailed description of NES and post-NES recentralisation see Leptin (1975), Leptin and Melzer (1978), Karen (1973 a, b).
4. On the state of technology in the GDR and various measures undertaken for attaining innovative efficiency see Bentley (1984).
5. The arrangement would come to an end in 1992, and the GDR will have to look for alternative export avenues.
6. Incidentally Gorbachev's offer for greater autonomy to enterprises in dealing with the external economy-enterprises can retain a part of the export earnings, which can be directly used for import purposes.
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