Life Goes On

We talked with Dagmar Suster, former Vice-President of the Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce (whose fate had to be that of a successor of Federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic) and today Vice-President of the Slovene Chamber of Commerce, about the economic trends between the former Yugoslav republics in these times of war.

We have, lately, been hearing contradictory assessments regarding the importance of the "southern" markets to Slovenia's economy. First, it was said that Slovenia markets only four percent of its exports in the "south". One week after the embargo, entirely different figures were given, accompanied by Slovene Television reports on firms which, suddenly, are sustaining heavy losses because of the embargo against Serbia and Montenegro.

In 1990, Slovenia sold one fourth of its products to the other republics. It is totally senseless to say that the southern market is not important to Slovenia. The sales to that market, and therefore its importance to Slovenia, objectively decreased in the past two years; in 1991, Slovenia sold only 17.3 percent of its products, and only 10 percent from October to December 1991. The figures are about the same for the first months of this year. All this shows that Yugoslavia's economic disintegration has its price and that all parts will have to cover that loss somehow. Nobody is going to come out this untouched.

The fact that Slovenia managed to cooperate economically with Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro at a time when no kind of communications existed and when a war was being waged, to me, is something that borders on the miraculous. When all is said and done, this shows the vitality of these economies and the common interest in promoting cooperation. In the first four months of this year, Slovenia sold around 331 million dollars' worth of goods to Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and purchased around 218 million dollars' worth of goods. These are not large figures, but given the circumstances, they are considerable. It is more than likely that Slovenia will never trade in these markets as it used to, but I am convinced that there is not one economic reason why such cooperation should be suspended. I think that we will cooperate in the future, perhaps even at a higher level, when the obstacles currently in our way are eliminated. Even now, although nobody writes about it, we have a mild "common economic space" or a "free trade zone" in the new Yugoslav states. For example, Slovenia does not charge any duty on goods imported from the former Yugoslav republics. We demand reciprocity there, so that our exports to the other republics are not burdened by taxes, either.

Do you think that the Serbian and Montenegrin markets will be important to Slovenia after the sanctions, as well? There are forecasts that Slovenia's place in Serbia and Montenegro will be taken over by the more competitive Germany and Austria.

I am convinced that we will continue to promote cooperation between our economies after the sanctions, too. As regards competition, Slovenia sold 254 million dollars' worth of goods to Germany by the end of April. In the same period, we sold Italy goods worth 171 million dollars, and France goods worth 150 million dollars, despite the fact that competition there is considerable, because Japanese and American companies have to be taken into account, in addition to the problems posed by the closed nature of the European market. If we have made it there, there is no reason why we should not sell our products on the Serbian and Montenegrin markets, and also buy certain products there. In addition to all this, Serbia is nearby, at least three times nearer than France, for instance. And this is not unimportant. Finally, many facilities were made in former Yugoslavia which counted on the entire market. That is why I advocate leaving these things to the business people, in more peaceful times. They will certainly find common interests.

If it had been up to us, Yugoslavia, as an economic entity, would never have fallen apart, even if it took six or sixteen different states to keep it together.

Is Slovenia's present reorientation to Western markets a short-term solution, the result of necessity, or is it a lasting trend?

Our economy's Western orientation is a lasting one, because we lost the Iraqi, Soviet and Yugoslav markets. In the last quarter of last year, Slovenia exported as much as one fourth of its goods to those markets, but that is too little. If we take into account the former Yugoslav market, we exported only some 35 percent, and 65 percent was left for the domestic market. This is a pathological picture of the economy; we have to switch these percentages in the next few years.

What about cooperation with Croatia? Croatian companies have, reportedly, been receiving orders from official bodies to reduce the amount of Slovene goods purchased as much as possible.

In the past four months, Slovenia exported 231 million dollars' worth of goods to Croatia, which means that Croatia is our second largest trade partner, after Germany. One must point out some specific circumstances in Slovene-Croatian trade. For years, a trade surplus has been present on the Slovene side, which has become problematic with the introduction of two new but unconvertible currencies. The balance between Slovenia and Croatia can be paid and settled, but a lot of good will is required.

At one point, you were to succeed Ante Markovic as Yugoslav Prime Minister. Are you glad that you did not take over that post? What would you have done differently had you been in Markovic's place?

The idea to take over the role of Prime Minister came too late, since Yugoslavia's fate was already sealed. That is why I do not regret that it did not come true, regardless of the fact that I would certainly have tried to change the course of events. For example, one of my ideas (my associates know about it) was to place a two year moratorium in Yugoslavia on political decisions, so as to resolve the economic problems. I wanted to pacify things in order to reach agreement on a peaceful, political solution to all problems. However, all the talks that I conducted with the various republican leaders revealed that nobody was really interested in that. Even though I do not mind not becoming Federal Prime Minister last year, I have to admit (I will be slightly immodest) that I am sorry I was not offered such a chance earlier, when things were not that far gone. As regards Markovic, I criticize him for pursuing an erroneous economic policy and making moves when things were already on an edge, even though one cannot say that he did everything he wanted to - badly. History will probably show that he believed too strongly in a compact Yugoslavia, a country that was an illusion even at the time when he took over as Prime Minister. That is why I frequently ask myself, would I have succeeded in changing anything in such a situation? I probably would not. I spent my whole life focusing on economic policy, not on politics which was Markovic's undoing. And now, things are as they are. Life must go on.