Fair Enough

It may fairly be said that the Leipzig Trade Fair is an annual event--the one now in progress is the 802nd. But this year there is a new sound to the old show: while some 70 nations display their wares, Communists and capitalists alike are clamoring for increased East-West trade. Says Cristina Dimitriu, director of Rumania's exhibit: "We are now interested more in business than in propaganda." Says Poland's Natalia Czaplicka: "We will sell anything to anybody."

About the only sour note was struck by East Germany's intransigent Walter Ulbricht, an old Communist who has yet to come in from the cold. Ulbricht lavished praise on the Soviet Union's exhibit--considered by most Western fairgoers to be Russia's most mediocre in years. And he notably managed to ignore the fair's biggest (and perhaps best) exhibit: that of West Germany.

Ulbricht's next-door unneighborliness was ironic in light of a 20% trade increase last year between the two Germanys. Of $750 million worth of goods exchanged between the two countries, West German exports, mostly in industrial products, accounted for $425 million; East German exports, mainly agricultural, textile and mining items, made up the rest.

West Germany, which still does not recognize Ulbricht's government diplomatically, is all in favor of stepping up trade. Economics Minister Karl Schiller last month urged West German businessmen to attend the Leipzig Fair. Bonn later adopted a Schiller proposal for expanded credit guarantees to West German firms trading with East Germany. Finally, Bonn has put off for a year--until June 30, 1968--the repayment deadline for some $100 million in trade deficits already owed by East Germany.

No matter how stubborn Ulbricht may seem, his country's westward trade drift is inevitable. At least 30% of East Germany's exports and imports are with Western nations--and of that, one-third is with West Germany. In the wee hours of the morning, even Walter Ulbricht must admit to himself that his country can only benefit by importing the vastly superior, much more varied products put out by the Germany on the other side of the Wall.

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