834.24/395: Airgram
The Ambassador in Paraguay (Frost) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 27—2 p.m.]
A–166. Reference Department’s Airgram No. 220 of May 5, 1943, 3:50 p.m. The flow of Import Recommendations has just begun after considerable difficulty in getting the decentralization export procedure under way. Every effort will be made to speed up the issuance of these forms and their transmittal to suppliers in the U. S., in order to take advantage of the anticipated increase in available tonnage indicated by the Board of Economic Warfare.
The slow start on the system is due to the fact that the Direction General of Industry and Commerce, the Country Agency42 here, is desperately short of personnel of any kind, much less of persons sufficiently trained to cope with the operations involved in decentralization. In addition, it undertakes to manage several other emergency tasks, such as rationing of gas and oil, price regulation, export control, etc., with the result that the work on decentralization gets only a fraction of its attention.
The critical nature of the situation has been brought to the attention of the Country Agency and the Minister of Agriculture during the past few days by members of the commercial section of the Embassy and is being taken up personally and informally by myself. It is hoped that an improvement will be shown in the coming weeks. It has been pointed out that Paraguay is in danger not only of losing some of its allocation of scarce materials, but also part of the shipping tonnage at its disposal, if sufficient import recommendations are not dispatched to Washington immediately.
A full report on the present status of the decentralized export control plan in this country is in preparation and will be forwarded in the form of a despatch within the next few days.
- The Paraguayan office responsible for administering import controls.↩