The Baltic Common Market is a commercial union of several countries that was proposed as a modern version of the Hanseatic League. In the 1940's, Sweden, Germany and Denmark were competing in trade and technology, particularly in front of other central and eastern European countries. Sweden had a great advantage of the captive markets of the other members of the Swedish Commonwealth: Finland, Novgorod and Estonia, while the extension of the Danish Crown allowed them to easily extend into the North American markets. On the other hand, Germany was the fastest developing industry in the area.