INTERRELATIONS OF PLANNING AND COMMODITY-MONETARY ELEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIALIST ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

The results achieved in connection with the practical application of the propositions of the Comprehensive Programme of socialist economic integration demonstrate the strengthening, both in theoretical and practical aspects, of the conception concerning organic unity of different forms of cooperation in the planning activity domain with wider use of commodity-monetary relations as the principal function of the control mechanism for the mutual economic and scientific-technical links between CMEA member-countries. But the development of individual elements forming above mentioned mechanism has been uneven and led to different results. Up to now commodity-monetary instruments have found limited application to the pre-plan phase of the choice of concrete integrational measures. Practice shows that the control mechanism of economic cooperation can be improved only as a complete system including all its elements. To this end a complex solution to several complicated problems of joint planning activity is required as well as an improvement of the organizational and control systems of foreign economic relations in CMEA countries, a real use of the principle of mutual advantages in economic relations and a coordinated development of instruments to be applied in foreign trade, monetary-financial and credit policies.