India is the Soviet Union's most important trading partner among the less developed countries (LDCs) and the largest recipient of Soviet aid to non-socialist LDCs. Similarly the Soviet Union is one of India's largest trade partners. In this book, Santosh Mehrotra presents for the first time a comprehensive study of this trading relationship and the transfer of technology from the Soviet Union. The author begins by outlining Indian economic strategy since the 1950s and the role of Soviet and East European technical assistance. He considers Soviet economic interests in LDCs in general and India in particular and discusses the special geopolitical relationship between India and the Soviet Union. In Part II, Mehrotra examines Soviet technological transfer to India since 1955. He analyses legal contracts, markets, labour and managerial skills, technical adaptation and the provision of 'follow-up' facilities; and he provides illuminating and detailed case studies of particular industries.
In the final chapters, the author analyses Indo-Soviet trade in the 1970s and 1980s, covering payment arrangements and bilateral trading, and he compares the terms of the relationship with India's trade relations with the rest of the world. India and the Soviet Union: trade and technology transfer is an exhaustive analysis of economic relations between an industrialised planned economy and a developing market economy. It will therefore become essential reading for students and specialists of development economics and international relations as well as for government and institutional economists in international trade and finance.