Russian Trade

U. S. manufacturers have found that Russia is in a buying mood for mining and oil equipment, agricultural machinery, binder twine, live stock, chemicals, metals, rubber, cotton, adding machines and typewriters. The Amtorg Trading Corp.* of Manhattan let it be known that business with the Soviet Union has been booming, that shipments reached a total of $31,199,834 in 1927, as compared with $8,681,412 in 1926. The All-Russian Textile Syndicate Inc. of Manhattan reported that its exports amounted to $42,000,000 in 1927, against $33,000,000 in 1926. These two companies handle the bulk of U. S. trade with the Soviet Union. Total export and import business between the two countries was estimated at $100,000,000 in 1927, $70,000,000 in 1926, $48,000,000 in 1913. The State Bank of the Soviet Union of Russia has arranged with the Chase National Bank of Manhattan, the Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, the Bank of Italy in San Francisco to sell part of a $30.000.000 Russian railway bond issue in the U. S. These bonds will be mailed from Russia to U. S. purchasers, but are printed so that payment of interest and principal will be made through the U. S. banks in dollars. Last week it was announced that $100,000 worth of these bonds had been sold.

*A company properly incorporated in the U. S. but financed and owned by the Russian Soviet Government. Except that it is the Soviets' purchasing agent in the U. S., its financial relations to that government is similar to the relations of the Emergency Fleet Corp. to the U. S. Government.