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- <text id=89TT2164>
- <title>
- Aug. 21, 1989: World Notes:Soviet Union
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 21, 1989 How Bush Decides
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 38
- World Notes
- SOVIET UNION
- Hard Cash for Hard Times
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Never mind country dachas or four-door Ladas. Soviet
- authorities figure the best incentive for greater agricultural
- yields is U.S. dollars or British pounds or German marks. Under
- an experimental program announced last week, the government will
- pay foreign cash to growers on state-run farms for excess
- harvests of wheat and other crops. The hard cash will enable
- farmers to purchase goods that no amount of rubles can buy, such
- as sophisticated farm equipment -- or videotape recorders.
- </p>
- <p> Loosening restrictions on Soviet citizens' access to
- foreign currencies is not just another glasnost gambit. If the
- Soviet Union hopes to feed itself, it must find ways of getting
- its moribund farming sector to perform better. Notes a senior
- Western diplomat: "If they could import goods from a Sears
- catalog, that might be a pretty good incentive."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-