The state has a monopoly of foreign exchange. Control over currency and foreign exchange is vested in the National Bank and administered by the bank jointly with the Ministry of Finance and the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank. All foreign exchange realized by state agencies from exports and other foreign operations must be surrendered to the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank, which also controls all exchange expenditures abroad. Transferability of funds by private individuals is strictly limited. Only 15 to 30 percent of inheritances, royalties, pensions, and support payments derived from abroad may be used or retransferred; from 70 to 85 percent of the sums received must be surrendered at the tourist rate of exchange. Residents may send small amounts and get travel allocations to COMECON and some Western countries. Most currency transactions by individuals with residents in Western states are prohibited. Residents may not own foreign currencies or securities or have bank balances abroad without official permission, nor may they import or export Romanian banknotes. They are forbidden to own or trade in gold, to export jewelry and diamonds, and to engage in foreign merchandise trade. Controls over financial transactions by state agencies in domestic currency and foreign exchange were tightened by a decree issued in September 1971. A companion decree also provided for much stricter border controls over foreign exchange, precious metals, and jewelry carried by individuals entering or leaving the country. Violations were more precisely defined, and penalties were substantially increased to discourage illegal traffic. FOREIGN TRADE Foreign trade is of crucial importance to the country's industrial development because imports must be relied upon for a large part of the requirements for materials and equipment. Trade has been expanding at a rapid rate, and imports have been growing faster than exports. In a bid for economic and political independence from the Soviet Union, the country's leadership succeeded in reorienting a substantial portion of its trade toward the industrial nations of Western Europe during the mid-1960s (see ch. 10). After 1967, however, the inability to generate enough exports salable in Western markets to balance imports forced the country to turn increasingly to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries for its import needs.