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On January 25, 1949, a communiqué issued in Moscow announced the creation by six eastern European countries of a new Council of Mutual Economic Assistance. The organization was established at an economic conference attended by representatives of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and the USSR.

A new intergovernmental financial institution formed by the eight member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) came into being on January 1, 1964, under the name of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation with headquarters in Moscow. Its initial capital was fixed at 60 million rubles (equivalent to §66,666,000), and was to increase to 300 million rubles within five years.

The terms of a protocol signed by the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania in January, 1949, when they formed the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance were released on June 3, 1949. Under the provisions of the agreement the Council was established to coordinate eastern European economy, standardize industrial production of member nations, provide mutual aid through trade, exchange of experience, loans and investments, for a period of twenty years.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) held its seventeenth session in Bucharest on December 74–20, 1962, attended by delegates from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. A communiqué stated that a permanent currency and finance commission had been set up under the Council to develop cooperation in those fields among COMECON member countries, that international specialization and "socialist division of labor" among members had increased, and that during the first nine months of 7962 over-all trade among member countries had risen by 15 percent and trade in machinery and industrial equipment by 24 percent. The communiqué noted that the COMECON countries were now largely self-sufficient in certain raw materials, manufactures, etc., notably lignite, hard coal, oil and oil products, fertilizers, grain, machinery and industrial equipment, and timber.