Developing countries : problems of foreign conomic relations.

The beginning of the 1970s has been mark ed by a new drive in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America to achieve stable economic growth and economic inde pendence. An important sphere of that struggle is economic relations with the advanced capi talist countries, the developing world's major partners in foreign trade, finance and other forms of external economic ties. The dire after math of colonial domination and the continu ing exploitation by monopoly capitalism doom the developing countries to an unequal status in world capitalist economy and widen the eco nomic gap between them and the advanced capitalist states.

The developing countries' economic relations with the advanced capitalist states are the sub ject of heated discussion in the United Nations and in other international organizations. These debates make it increasingly apparent that Western representatives seek to gloss over rea lities and preserve the system of international exploitation and subjugation. With this in mind there has been much publicity of late with re gard to the concept of "partnership in develop ment" between the developing nations and the advanced capitalist states. This is the idea ex pressed in the well-known report of the Pear son Commission. The idea of "partnership" was advocated by high-ranking officials of ad vanced capitalist countries and a number of international bodies at the Third UNCTAD Conference which was held in April-May 1972 in Santiago, Chile, and in its size and represen tation it was one of the most important inter national economic forums in history.