Skip to main content

CIA Declassified: Bloc Elimination of Western Middlemen and Direct Dealing With Malaya for Rubber



3 December 1962

Recent information reveals that the USSR and Poland have started to purchase rubber directly from Malaya and Singapore rather than through trading firms in London and Western Europe as been the practice heretofore. XXXXXXXXXX direct purchasing of rubber would benefit the Bloc by eliminating the middlemen and their commissions, thereby lowering the cost of the purchased rubber and enabling more expeditious handling of complaints that arise in connection with the shipments. A less obvious benefit is that direct purchasing on a large scale may provide long-run opportunities to the Bloc for the establishment of economic ties with the projected Federation of Malaysia.

In recent years, all purchases of Malayan rubber by the USSR and the European Satellites have been made through dealers in London and Western Europe, a situation stemming in part from the anti-Communist attitudes of the Malayan and Singapore governments, which refused to grant entry visas to Bloc trade representatives. The situation now appears to be changing. According to State despatches and articles in several periodicals, in September the governments of Malaya and Singapore for the first time permitted the entry of two Bloc (Polish) trade representatives for the purpose of negotiating purchases of rubber. 1/ Subsequently it was reported that sales of 3,000 long tons of rubber to Poland 2/ and 42,000 long tons to the USSR had been arranged. 3/ Moreover, it was reported (but unconfirmed) that one Singapore dealer, Yew Lian, Ltd., now has a direct teletype link with Moscow to facilitate Soviet purchases. 4/

The USSR and its European Satellites indirectly are among Malaya's largest customers for natural rubber. In 1961 these countries negotiated through London and Western Europe for the purchase of about 325,000 to 350,000 long tons, 5/ valued at more than $200 million, which amounted to almost half of Malaya's production and about 30 percent of Pan-Malayan exports.* Part of the shipments were made directly from Malaya or Singapore to the Bloc country concerned, and part were made from warehouses in London and Western Europe.

The purchase of such large amounts of rubber directly from Malaya and Singapore would benefit the Bloc in several ways. It would, as reported, eliminate the commissions of the Western dealers and probably would facilitate the resolution of certain business problems. Another aspect of direct purchasing is that it could open up long-run opportunities to the Bloc for establishing economic ties with Malaysia. Heretofore, direct Bloc trade with Malaya and Singapore has been practically negligible. If direct buying of rubber on a large scale is firmly established, the Bloc, particularly the USSR, probably will seek reciprocal markets in Malaysia.** One market that might be sought, for example, is a share in the equipment and technical assistance needed by Malaya to implement its program for economic development and diversification. At present, the intensely anti-Communist attitude of the Malayan government would seem to be a barrier to any barter arrangements of this nature. As time passes, however, proposals for such arrangements might become increasingly appealing. If the rapid development of new synthetic rubbers continues to depress the prices of natural rubber and to raise the specter of an oversupply, which would cause economic recession in the new Federation of Malaysia, Bloc barter proposals favorable to Malaysia for the exchange of equipment and technical assistance for rubber in time might be too attractive to resist.

* Pan-Malayan exports of natural rubber include those from both Malaya and Singapore and consist of rubber produced in Malaya and imported from Indonesia and other neighboring territories.

* Recently the USSR has been trying to place trade missions in Singapore.











Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Laugh and the world laughs with you

  Image created by ChatGPT Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. - Anthony Burgess To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep. - Joan Klempner If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep. - Dale Carnegie Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. - Thomas Jefferson Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good. - Soren Kierkegaard Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. - Mahatma Gandhi Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. - Jules Renard Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything. - Floyd Dell Idleness and lack of occupation tend - nay are dragged - towards evil. - Hippocrates, Decorum I don't think necessity is the mother of invention - invention, in my opinio...

We are an impossibility

  We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. - Ray Bradbury The higher the buildings, the lower the morals. - Noel Coward Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. - Benjamin Franklin Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. - Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts" Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide. - Cicero Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. - Mark Twain What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. - Thomas Paine Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash. - George S. Patton On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. - George Orwell READ MORE

The world is a tragedy

  Horace Walpole The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. - Alexander Hamilton To play it safe is not to play. - Robert Altman There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up. - Booker T. Washington The world is round; it has no point. - Adrienne E. Gusoff I think the world is run by 'C' students. - Al McGuire The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible. - Albert Einstein All the world's a cage. - Jeanne Phillips All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. - Sean O'Casey READ MORE