Infrastructure, the set of economic sectors servicing the productive and non- productive spheres of the economy. It includes the highways and ordinary roads, canals, airfields, power plants and lines, transport, warehouses, general and vocational education, public health service, etc., and is divided into productive and non-productive. The productive infrastructure directly serves material production; it is made up of all branches of transport, communications, warehouses, and material and technical supply. It also includes such general- purpose services of production as the system of power networks, thermal mainlines, oil and gas pipelines, industrial transport, the engineering systems of enterprises, and also computer centres and automated control systems. The non-productive infrastructure combines the services which ensure the general conditions of people’s daily activity, such as public health, education, rest and leisure institutions, tourism, etc. The development of the branches of the infrastructure has a direct impact on the development of social production and its growing effectiveness. As the productive forces expand, so does the role of the productive infrastructure. There emerge fundamentally new types of transport and communications facilities, which develop both in the framework of individual countries and internationally. This shapes the material infrastructure of international cooperation as a totality of the national elements of transport and communications systems servicing the foreign economic activities, and also interacting structures and projects ensuring environmental protection, the rational use of water and other resource^ the operative exchange of meteorological information, etc. Under state-monopoly capitalism the monopolies make the state responsible for financing and developing the infrastructure. Ultimately, all these expenditures are paid by the ordinary taxpayer—the working people. In developed socialist society the infrastructure plays an important role in dealing with fundamental socio-economic tasks. Therefore, more resources are allocated to accelerate the development of transport, communications and material supply. The non- productive infrastructure ensures higher living standards and better conditions for the all-round development of the physical and intellectual capabilities of the members of developed socialist society. Scientifically grounded planning of the proportions between material production and the branches which service it, and the development of these branches in conformity with the requirements of building communism are of great importance for the rational use of resources, for more effective social production and for further raising people’s living standards.