Transfer ruble
The transfer ruble (abbreviation: XTR) was an invoice currency used to offset liabilities, to determine the international value of goods and as a unit in bilateral trade agreements between the state planning authorities and governments that belonged to the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon). The name was based on the Soviet ruble .
On October 22, 1963, the member states of Comecon concluded an agreement on the introduction of the transfer ruble as a clearing unit and the establishment of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBWZ) in Moscow as a clearing house . Imports and exports within the economic area of the member states of the Comecon were measured exclusively in transfer rubles.
In the non-socialist economic area it played no role due to the lack of convertibility .
The exchange rates between the currencies of the Eastern Bloc countries and the transfer ruble were fixed. The exchange rate from 1976 to 1980 was set at 1 transfer ruble = 5 marks / currency equivalent (M / VGW) and from 1981 to 1989 with 1 transfer ruble = 4.67 M / VGW.
Clearing process
In each Comecon country a foreign trade bank was designated to take part in the clearing. For the GDR it was the Deutsche Außenhandelsbank AG (DABA). The payment of foreign trade transactions was made through these foreign trade banks. The claims of the individual national foreign trade banks were offset against each other centrally at the IBWZ.
Problems of the transfer ruble system
The central problem of every central administration economy, the lack of information about the scarcity and value of goods, which can only be identified from market prices , also burdened the transfer ruble system.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the cost of GDR products when exporting to the USSR was 3.6 to 3.8 GDR marks per transfer ruble received. At a rate of 4.67 Marks for the GDR, the GDR made profits. The obvious expansion of exports was not possible due to the planned economy. In 1988, according to internal estimates, goods worth 32.8 billion marks were delivered from the GDR to the Soviet Union and paid for using transfer rubles. Other states like Hungary were also subsidized by the Soviet Union in this way.
In all Eastern Bloc countries, a distinction was made between “soft goods” and “hard goods”. While hard goods were world marketable and could be exported to the West in exchange for hard currencies , soft goods were not marketable in the West. All states therefore tried to sell hard goods against hard currency and soft goods against transfer rubles in the east. This created an incentive to export poor quality against transfer rubles.
Transfer Ruble Fraud
With the introduction of the DM in the GDR as part of the monetary, economic and social union on July 1, 1990, the basis of the transfer ruble system was removed, as there was now a fixed exchange rate between the DM as a freely convertible currency and the non-freely convertible currencies of the others Comecon states came into being. Abolition would, however, have brought the export of the GDR economy to a complete standstill, since the Comecon states neither had foreign currency to buy GDR products nor were GDR products competitive on the world market.
Therefore, the transfer ruble procedure was retained until December 31, 1990. This made possible the transfer ruble fraud, a form of the union-related white-collar crime . Here, German companies allegedly exported goods to the Comecon countries in sham transactions , where the alleged recipients paid in transfer rubles and the alleged exporter received the equivalent in DM Had to pay transfer rubles.
The end of the transfer ruble
The transfer ruble clearing transactions with the former Comecon countries were continued by the Federal Republic after reunification until the end of 1990 for reasons of protection of trust. Even today, payments for this are made from the federal budget - albeit to a small extent. The federal government is still litigating about the recovery of claims.
At the 45th meeting of the COMECON, it was decided to switch to clearing in hard currency at current world market prices from 1991. This should be done in stages to take into account the economic situation of the individual countries.
Trivia
Transfer ruble fraud was the subject of an episode of the series Black-Red-Gold (The Ruble Rolls) and the Police Call 110 episode Turning Maneuver .
swell
- Kai Renken, Werner Jenke: White-collar crime in the unification process. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 51 (2001), H. 32/33, ISSN 0479-611X , pp. 23-29. ( online ; PDF; 60 kB)
- Leonid I. Zedilin: Soviet Union, GDR and Comecon in the Gorbachev era. In: Reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern and International Studies. 34/1995. ( online )
Individual evidence
- ^ The balance of payments of the German Democratic Republic 1975–1989 ( Memento of August 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) p. 25
- ↑ Chapter 6003 Title 671 03 "Reimbursement of expenses and payments in connection with transfer ruble clearing transactions."
- ↑ Federal budget 2013. Accessed on May 9, 2013. (PDF; 515 kB)