§ Sir Frederic Bennettasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is now the total indebtedness of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the members of COMECON listed separately and in United States $ terms as the result of medium- and long-term credits granted to them since February 1974.
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§ Mr. Robert SheldonOwing partly to the complete absence of information from most COMECON countries and partly to the lack of comprehensive statistics from the major Western creditors countries, all figures of COMECON'S indebtedness are estimates. It is believed that the total convertible currency indebtedness of all COMECON countries—including Cuba but excluding Mongolia, whose debts to the West are in any case negligible—grew from rather less than $20 billion at the end of 1973 to between $42 billion and $45 billion at the end of last year. This total is estimated to be distributed as follows:
US $ billion. Bulgaria 2½ Cuba 2 Czechoslovakia 1½ German Democratic Republic 4½–5 Hungary 3 Poland 10–11 Romania 3½ USSR 15–16 42–44½ On average, perhaps about half of these individual country totals may be accounted for by medium- and long-term credit, the remainder being short-term trade finance.