At an “International economic conference” held in Moscow in April, 1952, speakers from Soviet bloc countries presented summary figures on the volume of East-West trade which, as they claimed, could be achieved within the next two or three years on condition that “artificial barriers” (i.e., mainly Western security export controls) were removed. These figures were intended to document the contention that, in the absence of such barriers, the Soviet bloc would welcome expansion of East-West trade to a level high enough to produce most far-reaching and beneficial effects in the West in respect of relieving the dollar shortage, improving living standards, reducing unemployment, assisting the development of backward economies, and so on.