Moscow, May 5: India’s demand for increased supplies of fertilizers, non-ferrous metals and newsprint have been met in the Indo-Soviet Trade Protocol for 1972 signed here to-day. The Newsprint quota agreed upon is over 50,000 tonnes. The Ministers of Foreign Trade of India and the Soviet Union, Mr. L. N. Mishra and Mr. Nikolai Potalichev, signed the document at a brief official ceremony. The protocol visualised sale upto Rs. 5 crore worth of Soviet tractors to India as a prelude to co-operation in building Indian capacities in tractor building. The two countries agreed to set up a Joint Committee including the two Ministers of Foreign Trade and officials to further expand and enrich trade which is already targeted to touch Rs. 500 crore mark this year. This year’s turn-over is expected to exceed the volume of 1970 by 30 per cent. Summing up the results of his talks here, Mr. Mishra told PTI they were very successful. The Soviet attitude was extremely helpful and co-operative and they showed high appreciation of India’s problems. He acquainted the Soviet side with his plans for structural changes in India’s foreign trade which will place greater reliance on trade with the USSR, other centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
