The Foreign Trade and Payments of the GDR in a Changing World Economy 1

At the beginning of the 1980s the GDR was burdened with foreign trade and payments difficulties more severe than ever before in its history. The economic turbulences culminated in increased economic pressure from both the West and the East. For one thing the GDR got caught in the wake of the international debt crisis, which derived from the inability of Poland and Romania to repay; for another, the GDR had to suffer a cut-back in Soviet crude oil deliveries of more than 10 per cent and, simultaneously, an abrupt increase in the price of Soviet oil of nearly 50 per cent.