LONDON, Sept. 7 — John Brown Engineering, a big British engineering company, has won an order for a power station in Burma to be built at cost of $7.7‐million. The contract said that Burma would make part payment in rice — $2.4‐million worth.

With all that rice to dispose of, John Brown took the problem to Biddle Sawyer, a London company that specializes in barter transactions. Biddle Sawyer, aware that Britain was giving more than $14‐million worth of aid to help Pakistani refugees in. India, approached the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. And the Government, eager to encourage exports, arranged to spend almost $5‐million of the aid on Burmese rice.

Henry Klonarides, a director of Biddle Sawyer who in his time has dealt with items as diverse as Greek grapes and Bulgarian trucks, called the arrangement “an intelligent way of making use of aid.”