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FINANCIAL REPORTS

Report of the Treasurer

For the Period January 1, 1991 to December 31, 1994

The financial transactions of IUGG have been governed by the budget adopted by the council at the General Assembly in Vienna in 1991. The Finance Committee has been consulted concerning the outlook, that the changing economic situation for some countries resulted in difficulties with the dues payments. The budget in Vienna anticipated 1260.000 US dollars membership dues for the 4 year period. This was adjusted downwards by 50.000 US dollars by the Finance Committee, and this amount can be said to have been almost reached, since the paid 1.164.000 US dollars were supplemented by a few countries paying over 60.000 US dollars for 1994, shortly after New Year.

Grants from ICSU and income from publications have been very close to the budget.

Several expense items have been kept lower than expected in the budget (in round numbers):

administration	20.000 US dollars
travel	40.000 US dollars
publications	60.000 US dollars
dues and grants	20.000 US dollars

The expense items symposia and allocations, have been according to the budget, while the Vienna General Assembly in 1991 was 25.000 US dollars more expensive than foreseen in the budget.

Altogether this means that IUGG came out of 1994 with approximately 200.000 US dollars in the bank, which is about 70% of the yearly money flow. This is convenient and suitable for generally being able to pay bills, when payments are needed by the recipients. It is advisable that IUGG will make a budget for the coming period, which keeps this balance between reserves and yearly money flow.

The result of the 4-year period has been brought forward by a restrictive policy. The IUGG Executive Committee has proposed to tighten this restrictive policy within the common union activities and direct more money to the separate Associations.

Both IUGG and the separate Associations have felt the restrictions. To keep pace with the scientific needs IUGG has had the tradition to discuss stepwise increases of the basic unit of subscription. This has always given difficulties for some IUGG an alternate proposal is here presented for consideration by the IUGG Council, namely, to let the unit of subscription increase with the OECD inflation rate (see separate proposal).

The classification of the member countries in c ategories at the end of 1994 is presented in Table 1. Altogether 324 units were payable to IUGG for 1994, i.e. an amount of 370.980 US dollars.

The number of member countries is now 81, compared to 78 four years ago. DDR, and Yugoslavia have disappeared and Czechoslovakia has split into 2 states. Croatia, Slovenija, Estonia and Zaire have joined IUGG.

A large number of member countries are in arrears of payment medio MAR 1995 (Tables 2 and 3). These are according to the IUGG statutes in observer status. And this has been specified in letters to these countries from the treasurers office. The arrears amount to 162 units, i.e. of the order of 185.000 US dollars. This is slightly worse than in 1991.

These serious arrears for so many member countries constitute a limitation on IUGG activities and present unreasonable inconvenience to the treasurers office. Consequently I urge the responsible authorities of those countries to seek agreements with IUGG concerning payment of debts to the IUGG, and to establish regular payments of their dues.

Finally I want to thank all those with whom I have had good cooperation as treasurer of IUGG: the IUGG Bureau, the IUGG Finance Committee, the Presidents and General Secretaries of the Associations and the Head of the publications office in Bruxelles, P. Melchior. I would also like to thank the Assistant Treasurer Frede Madsen (through 1993) and Per Knudsen (since 1994), and the Secretaries at various times in the IUGG Treasurers office in Copenhagen Jette and Birte Rogen and Allis Gregersen.

March 24, 1995
Soren Gregersen

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