Sir, The use of economic statistics from the former Soviet Union in the
article "Managing divorce between Moscow and Kyiv" (November 23) is not
a very reliable way to attempt to define future relationships of the new
states.
The Soviet Union was a command economy. None of the republics was a national economy that controlled what it produced and where it was consumed.
Inter-republic trade was a result of central policy and not "market" conditions.
When the Soviet Union became obsolete so did its economy. New states,
like Ukraine, will completely rebuild their economies. They certainly
will have little resemblance to their past.
It is therefore impossible (using Soviet data) to forecast how the economic
spheres of the states should or will develop, just as no one could have
foreseen the reconstructed postwar Japanese economy produce major links
beyond Asia. |
