Activities of the Institute for Economic and Market Research its achiavements in 1968, objectives for 1969, and its lomg-range targets

Abstract

The activities of the Institute for Econoaic and Market Research, an independent economic research institute of Hungarian foreign trade, ara financed and supervised by the Miniatry of Foreign Trade. Its activities are aimed at promoting the work of the country's top economic leaders, authorities and institutions, but it also supplies agencies and companies concerned in foreign trade with information on the world economic situation. Serving the institute's purposes is the newspaper Világgazdaság (World Economy), started on January 1, 1969 in common with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, which is virtually the only economic dally in this country. Set up in the second half of 1967, the Institute's Marketing Group conducts market analysis on compensation.
Research work carried on by the Institute is divided - according to major thematic groups - into three departments such as Department of World Economy, Department of Branch Economics, and Methodological Department. Speciel library and documentation services are at the staff-members' disposal, to which the apparatus of foreign trade has also free access.
Deserving special mention among the 1968 achievements of the Institute are: studies in commercial policy and branch economics, prepared in connection with the Institute's participation in various committees on long-range economic planning; current economic information about the socialist and the developing countries; information about the foreign exchange market with a special view to the actual monetary problems of the individual capitalist counrtries; a large-scale investigation into the market of chemical products; foreign trade predictions, adopting new methods.
In 1969, too, the Institute will he given important assignment to support theoretically long-range planning and examine problems arising from the execution of the new economic mechanism. It will, at the same time, extend its information services to management units, as well. New features of the Institute's 1969 research program involve the analysis of the problems of economic relations and co-operation with the socialist countries with a view to the economic reform; the study of capitalist analogies relating to the means of foreign trade control, commercial policy toward the developing countries and the clearing procedures; the examination of the interaction between foreign trade and economic growth. Of the theoretical studies mention should be made of the programming of foreign trade tumover, and of the examination of foreign trade relations by means of mathematical methods.
Problems concerning the execution of the new economic mechanism and a rapprochement to be reached between the economic systems of the socialist countries also play an important part among the long-range objectives. Of great moment are examinations aimed at enhancing both the country's ability to export goods to the capitalist market and the interest of Hungarian companies in capitalist exports, as well as studies, exploring ths possibilities of the import of raw materials, fodder, and consumers' goods from the developing countries. In analysing changes in the world economic situation, particular attention is paid to factors affecting Hungarian economy as well.