ABSTRACT
The East European fruit and vegetable trade balance shows a large deficit that, since 1980, has hovered around one billion dollars. In centrally planned economies, the volume and structure of agricultural trade depend mostly on the policy choices made by the decisionmakers. Trade in "basic goods," meaning grains, meat, dairy products, eggs and fish, should gradually decrease until it disappears. The difficulties encountered in the execution of their agricultural programs moved the decisionmakers to make a drastic revision of policy. In 1982, there was a spectacular reversal in the trend, with the overall agricultural trade deficit dropping by $3.5 billion. The growing importance of grain and meat in trade as well as the ambiguity of the concept of self-sufficiency leads to an analysis of the geographical structure of the goods. The East European fruit and vegetable trade balance shows a large deficit that, since 1980, has hovered around one billion dollars.
