851.51/10–2447: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
secret
Paris, October 24, 1947—3 p.m.
4569. With reference my telegrams 4532, October 22, 4496 and 4493,1 October 18, Finance Ministry has informed me that Cabinet has made following decisions regarding revision import programs:
- 1.
- Coal import plan for November and December will remain at 1.7 million tons from US November and December, but 1.3 million of total will be concentrated in November shipments with hope that December shipments can be expanded if external assistance is forthcoming by that time.
- 2.
- At insistence of Ministry of Industrial Production that measures were necessary to keep refineries and industries operating, additional imports of $13.6 million were authorized for crude petroleum and $12.4 million additional imports variety of industrial materials, medical supplies and certain essential supplies for overseas territories.
- 3.
- Above decisions raised prospective December [?]2 deficit to $129 million. Finance Ministry is exploring or negotiating on following possibilities for meeting deficit: (a) Continuation moratorium motion picture payments; (b) deferral monetary fund payment; (c) deferral dollar payment to UK Government; (d) increase credit ceiling Belgo-Franco payments agreement to avoid further dollar transfers to Belgium; (e) possibility UK might agree to make small amount of French-held sterling convertible into dollars; (f) additional stopgap administrative assistance from US including availability $37 million Japanese-held gold, Exim Bank assistance and Commodity Credit Corporation assistance.
- 4.
- Finance Ministry has been informed by French banks that New York Banks are increasingly restricting their credit lines, which further complicated situation.
- 5.
- Finance Ministry and Bank of France continue to hope that new transfer of gold may be avoided but it appears that a large number of the possibilities listed above would have to become realities if this were to prove to be the case.
Caffery