p Present-day scieritiiic and technical progress, which is having an increasing impact on the main lines in the dynamics of the postwar growth of world capitalism’s productive forces, is finding expression in a steady increase in uneven development of manufacturing. The structural proportions and inner connections within traditional, long-established industries are being altered, while new, technically advanced industries are arising and rapidly developing. In fact there is not now a major sphere of the economy in any capitalist country that is not being directly or indirectly affected by the revolutionary changes in science and engineering.

On the general background of the resultant shifts in the development of the productive forces of manufacturing there have been very considerable changes in its industrial structure in recent decades, and in the balance of power between the main centres and various groupings of monopoly capital. In that connection it is becoming important to study the long-term structural changes that have occurred since the war because of the continual fluctuations in the economic situation. Global analysis of these changes in turn provides a general background for bringing out and characterising the specific features of the industrial development of separate countries and regions.