Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1940, Page 98

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LE NORD
in Finland timber, pulp and paper contribute more than 80 per
cent. to the total value of exports.
Finland will, then, have to fall back to a greater extent than
before on the development of the home market industries, parti-
cularly if the international tendency towards autarchy persists
or becomes still more reckless than before. It seems probable
enough that the conditions now referred to may reinforce the
interest in the development of inter-Scandinavian trade and in
particular favour an expansion of the trade between Finland
and Sweden which allows increased sales of Finnish products
on the Swedish market.
This object may be promoted by a more active development
of that policy of Scandinavian co-operation (“Scandinavian” of
course being taken to include Finland also) which has gained
wide recognition in all the Northern countries. So far the actual
results of that co-operation have been rather limited in the com-
mercial field. As pointed out above the export trade of the
Northern countries, and of Sweden and Finland in particular,
is more competitive than complementary. And in any case the
market offered by the Northern countries is too narrow to be
of any decisive importance to the individual members of the
group. At present the other Northern countries take about 15
per cent. of the Swedish exports and less than 10 per cent. of those
of Finland. As long as no form of preferential treatment is adopt-
ed in inter-Scandinavian trade it may, perhaps, seem a rather
difficult task to raise those percentages appreciably above their
present level. But under a system of preferential treatment con-
ditions might become somewhat different, and at least in certain
lines of business the Scandinavian countries or some of them
might form a single home market offering greater possibilities of
division of work than at present. Further developments in this
field are, however, largely dependent on the course of inter-
national commercial policy, but if the general tendency remains
very autarchical, the idea of inter-Scandinavian preferential
treatment in tariff matters may become an issue of considerable
practical importance.
Even if there is no great change in the field of tariff policy,
the mutual trade relations of Sweden and Finland as those of the
Northern countries in general may be facilitated in other ways.
The importance of monetary policy in this respect has been em-
phasized above. A stable relationship between the different cur-