The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-07-02


those totals were imports valued al
81 billion, exports of $3.4 billion
which is at the rate of 81 billion a
year for imports, $13 billion year
for exports.
Compare that with the $2.7 bill
lion imports and the $7.9 billion ex-
ports for 1912.
OF these amounts, not quite so
per cent of the imports and not
quite 40 per cent of the exports
were on order of the Board of
Economic Warfare This is the i'm
portant part of the U. S. foreign
trade in wartime. 1t is the nucleus
of what will be developed into
Americas postwar foreign trade.
for in all these transactions the
actual trading is not done by the
government, but by established pri-
vate business houses engaged in eX-
port and import trade. BEW de-
| termineS what commodities shall be
brought in and grants the licenses
controlling exports.
MILO PERKINS
EXPLAINS
Money for the deals is handled
/ by Reconstruction Finance Corpo-
ration and it's subsidiaries. But the
actual deals are handled by COM
mercial firms actually in the bus
mess.
| Milo Perkins, executive director
of BEW, in explaining to Congress
how his Office of Imports was di-
recting the purchase of some 600
different items in 40 different
countries, recently gave an, insight
into the motives of this method of
doing business:
/ In all import operations he
said, 1.-The interests of u S. COM
mercial importers must always be
considered. If coffee is to be brought
in, coffee importers handle the job
as agents of the responsible gov
eminent corporations. If fats and
oils are needed, all U. S. oil i'm
porters are invited to join a special
association to handle the opera
tons. It's good business to use the
skill and experience of these men
now, and it's good business to help
them weather the storms of this
war economy so they'll still be in
business when the war is over"
! On all these jobs, the commercial
| importers are paid fee to act as
| agents on the deal.
The same system is followed on
exports only here, the volume of
| business being three times as great,
it is that much more difficult.
TRAINED EXPORTERS
NEEDED
There are in all about $4,000 U.
firms that have been in the export
| business at one time or another,
shipping out some $500 items to
140 different country destinations.
The job now is to see that no eX-
port shipments fall into the hands
of foreign importer who might
re-eXport to the enemy. The work
is complicated further by this policy
of protecting commercial exporters
particularly tie smaller concerns.
Just as in the case of importers
says Perkins, eve need the services
of trained commercial exporters
now and we shall need them much
more to spearhead U. S. commercial
activities abroad when the war is
over"
! About half of the cash exports
go to Latin-American countries,
and the principal consideration in
granting export licenses is to con-
tribute towards keeping those coun-
tries alive economically so that
there will be something there to
trade with when the war is over.
The hush-hush part of BEW's
| job is the work of what it calls its
economic commander who must
scour the world to find new sources
of materials like balsa wood, quiz
nine, fiber substitutes and a long
list of minerals without which the
war might well be lost