exchange.

Investment allotments to consumer goods industries ranged between 12.2
and 18.8 percent of industrial investment, except for an unusually high
allocation of 21.5 percent in 1970. In 1971, however, the investment
share of consumer industries dropped sharply to only 14.5 percent. The
predominance of investment in heavy industry reflected the leadership's
basic economic policy tenet that, with minor temporary exceptions, the
production of capital goods must develop more rapidly than the output of
consumer goods.

Construction of industrial plants has frequently fallen behind schedule,
causing losses of planned production and disruption of the five-year
plans. The situation became critical in the fall of 1972 because of the
failure to commission on time new facilities that were counted upon to
produce in 1973, among other products, 0.5 million tons of rolled steel;
0.4 million tons of mineral fertilizers; 30,000 tons of synthetic
fibers; 20,000 tons of cellulose; 11,000 tons of polyethylene; 0.3
million kilowatts of electric generating capacity; and a large volume of
machinery and equipment.

The main reasons for the construction lag were delays in the supply of
materials and a shortage of construction workers. In an effort to
expedite the completion of the most essential projects that were under
the direct supervision of the Council of Ministers because of their
national importance, the council created a special operational bureau
for the coordination and control of the construction activities
associated with these projects. At the same time 6,000 workers were
transferred to the priority projects from less important construction
jobs. These measures did little to solve the basic problems and merely
shifted the incidence of construction delays from one category of
projects to another.

LABOR

The labor force in state and collective industry numbered 1.17 million
workers in 1971, of whom 542,000--or 46 percent--were women. The labor
force had increased by 54 percent compared with its size in 1960, and
the number of women workers more than doubled. About 88 percent of the
workers were employed in manufacturing; the remaining 12 percent were
engaged in mining and energy production. Production of capital goods
provided employment for 52.5 percent of the workers, and consumer goods
industries absorbed the remainder. One-fourth of the labor force was
concentrated in machine building and metalworking, and anoth