The Romanian Foreign Trade Bank was established in July 1968. Its principal functions are to facilitate exports and, through strict controls over exchange allocations, to encourage import substitution by domestic producers. In 1970 about 73 percent of the bank's credits were devoted to exports, and only 21 percent were granted for imports. The remaining 6 percent of the credits were used to finance internal transport. In July 1971 the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank and a group of eight French financial institutions opened the Romanian-French Bank in Paris. This bank was organized as a private limited-liability company with a capital of 20 million French francs underwritten in equal parts by the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank and the French bankers. In the second half of 1971 the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank acquired affiliates in London and Rome. The Bank for Agriculture and the Food Industry was created in May 1971 by expanding the functions and changing the name of the Agricultural Bank established three years earlier. This reorganization followed the consolidation of previously independent ministries into the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Industry, and Waters (referred to as the Ministry of Agriculture). The bank was capitalized at 500 million lei and was required to create a reserve out of profits equal to the amount of its capitalization. The bank's function is to provide investment and operating credits for enterprises under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, including collective farms, and to finance the distribution of their products within the country. A few summary data on credits extended by the Bank for Agriculture and the Food Industry to collective farms have been released to the country's press in an obvious effort to publicize official concern for this important but neglected farm sector (see ch. 15). Information on other aspects of this bank's operations have not been disclosed. The Savings and Loan Bank, an institution nationalized at an early stage of communist rule, had 1,560 branches and agencies in 1971, most of which were located in rural areas. The main function of the bank has been to mobilize the cash resources of the population for investment, through obligatory periodic transfers of deposited funds to the National Bank. In the 1966-70 period subsidiary functions of the bank gained in importance, including small-scale commercial bank transactions, personal loans, and tax collections. Receipts from personal savings deposits accounted for 70 percent of total cash receipts in 1970. Since the beginning of 1970 the bank has also made loans for private housing construction.