p The type of social reproduction that has taken shape in the African countries cannot do without a foreign market needed to sell a considerable portion of produce and satisfy the bulk of the requirements in industrial commodities and consumer goods. In 1976 the newly free African countries accounted for approximately 4.8 per cent of the trade turnover of the non-socialist world: in 1975 the exports and imports of these countries accounted for 24.3 per cent and 29.1 per cent respectively of their GNP.

p The foreign trade of the African countries is geared to the industrialised capitalist states (about 80 per cent of the total export), and this is a permanent factor of the economic growth of many of them. But this does not apply to the economy of the independent African countries themselves. The weak links between most of the export branches and the domestic economy considerably limit the chances of using them directly to promote economic development, while the 146 relatively low prices of raw materials maintained by the monopolies on the world market until recently did not guarantee adequate and stable profits which could have been used to industrialise and modernise agricultural production.

p Although independent African states now control their main raw material resources, this fact, certainly, cannot immediately modify the nature of their foreign economic links with the capitalist West which is still their principal commodity market. From 1970 to 1975 it accounted for 81.3 per cent of the African export, i.e., approximately as much as it did in the mid-1960s. Yet it would be wrong to say that the position of the African countries in tiie international capitalist division of labour has not changed. As they strengthen their sovereignty they become increasingly active in foreign trade. Independent African states have already made some progress in their struggle for economic equality, an important part of which are their efforts to change their role in the international division of labour, particularly in world trade.

p At the end of 1973 and the beginning of 1974 they managed, together with the other OPEC countries, to fix their own prices on crude oil and impose on the monopolies their own policy in the field of prices, the volume of production and supply to the world market. Following OPEG’s example, countries exporting copper, bauxites, phosphates and other mineral raw materials are now working to set up their own producer associations.

p The rise in the prices of many kinds of raw materials in the 1970s brought about a change in the ratio between the prices of raw materials and manufactured goods in favour of the developing countries. This heightened the importance of exported raw materials as a lever for transforming the economy of a number of developing countries.

p At the same time the rise in the prices of raw materials and the ensuing steady growth in the cost of basic manufactures on the world market increased the differentiation between individual groups of African countries. From 19b’7 to 1973 there was a favourable balance of trade. But this summary shift in Africa’s foreign trade balance was mainly due to the rapid rise of Libya and Nigeria as leading oil exporting countries. The favourable trade balance is also a result of the increased copper exports from Zambia.

p Between 1974 and 1977 the position of African countries which do not export oil deteriorated. Their expenditures on imports increased considerably as a result of the growth of prices on oil and also on manufactured goods imported from the capitalist countries. Simultaneously, the economic crisis of 1974-75 which hit all the leading industrialised capitalist countries, caused decline in African imports. In three years, from 1974 to 1976, the adverse balance of trade of the African countries (with the exception of Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Gabon) grew to $14,295 million.

It follows, then, that so far the main group of African countries do not derive enough profits from foreign trade to cover the cost of essential imports.