Soviet Union-Yugoslavia

In 1964 Yugoslavia negotiated a formal agreement of cooperation with Comecon. This relationship allowed Yugoslavia to maintain its nonaligned position while acquiring almost all the rights and privileges of a full Comecon member. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union's trade relationship with Yugoslavia resembled its relationship with full members of Comecon. The Soviet Union exported fuel, ferrous metals, plastics, and fertilizer to Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's machine-tool, power-engineering, shipbuilding, and consumer goods industries supplied the Soviet Union with soft-currency goods (see Glossary).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Yugoslavia became more dependent on Soviet oil, as hostilities in the Persian Gulf cut off its supply of Iraqi oil. In addition, from 1970 well into the 1980s actual trade with the Soviet Union exceeded planned trade volumes. Thus, in 1983 the Yugoslav government informed Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai A. Tikhonov of its desire to decrease trade with the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980s. Because of the huge foreign currency debt accumulated by Yugoslavia from 1981 to 1985, however, the Soviet Union remained its most important trade partner in the late 1980s. In fact, for some Yugoslav products, such as shoes, the Soviet Union was the sole foreign buyer.

Data as of May 1989