Organization for European Economic Cooperation

The ninth annual report of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), entitled A Decade of Cooperation, Achievements and Perspectives?, was made public in April 1958. It included a summary of the origins of OEEC and reviewed the ten years of its history, considering such topics as the recovery and expansion of output, expanding exports and freeing trade, the creation of the European Payments Union and its activities, the fight against inflation, and cooperation in various fields of economic activity. It devoted a section to present and future tasks, noting that finding the means for maintaining adequate expansion along with financial stability was a major problem. The report stated that in recent months there had been signs, with one or two important exceptions, that the pressure on prices had slackened; raw material prices had fallen, and the price rise for manufacturing products had been checked. After reaching record levels, the pace of industrial expansion in western Europe had been considerably reduced as the investment boom tapered off; there had been no increase in total industrial production in member countries combined since spring 1957. A fall in many primary commodity prices, due largely to a continued upward trend in output of primary commodities in the face of a levelling off of world demand had reduced the purchasing power of third countries and eventually would tend to reduce their purchases from member countries. The present economic situation, therefore, had conflicting tendencies, making it difficult to establish firm lines of policy; demand pressures had eased, but the rise of the cost of living had not clearly been checked.