conditions under which wages may be cut or
the maximum permissible amount of the wage cuts. The new rules thus
introduced an element of discretionary exercise of punitive authority.
They also deprived the accused of recourse to the courts, which had been
available to them under earlier legislation.

INVESTMENT AND CONSTRUCTION

Industry has consistently received more than half the total investment
in the economy. In the 1966-70 period industrial investment out of the
state budget (centralized investment) amounted to 162.1 billion lei--a
volume almost as great as that invested during the preceding fifteen
years. Additional investment out of enterprise resources was only about
1 percent of the total and had been even less in earlier years. From 86
to 90 percent of the industrial investment was channeled into branches
producing capital goods. Centralized investment in industry during the
1971-75 period is planned at 281.2 billion lei, or about 60 percent of
the total planned investment.

Industries producing fuels and energy absorbed the largest share of
investment, but their share declined from 51 percent in the 1951-55
period to 31 percent in the 1966-70 period. The high priority accorded
to the development of the chemical industry was reflected in a doubling
of that industry's investment share from less than 7 percent in the
former period to 14 percent in the 1960s. Similarly, a drive for
qualitative improvement in machine building and metalworking was
accompanied by an increase in the proportion of investment devoted to
that industry from a level of 7 to 8 percent in the 1951-65 period to 14
percent in the second half of the 1960s. Ferrous metallurgy absorbed
about 10 percent of the investment in the fifteen-year period that ended
in 1970. A need to expand exports of manufactured goods and to provide
material incentives for the working population stimulated a rise of
investment in the light and food industries to 13 percent of the total
in the 1966-70 period, compared to a share ranging from 7.5 to 10
percent in earlier five-year periods.

About 48 percent of the industrial investment was absorbed by building
construction and installation work, 37 percent was spent on machinery
and equipment, and 15 percent was devoted to the increase of working
capital. One-third of the investment in machinery and equipment from
1966 to 1969 was used for procurement abroad, that proportion having
increased from about one-fifth i