Why Was The General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade Created

However, this part of the result was not authorized by Congress and the U.S. selling price was not abolished until Congress passed the results of the Tokyo Round. The results in agriculture as a whole have been poor. The most notable achievement was the agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding on the basic elements for the arrangement of global subsidies, which was eventually incorporated into a new international agreement on cereals. There were three political institutions exercising the executive and legislative branches of the EEC, as well as a judicial institution and a fifth institution established in 1975. These institutions (with the exception of auditors) were established by the EEC in 1957, but were applicable to the three Communities from 1967. The Council represents governments, Parliament represents citizens and the Commission represents European interests. The prosperity of the global economy over the past half century is due in large part to the growth of world trade, partly due to far-sighted officials who created the GATT. They have defined a number of procedures aimed at providing stability to the trading environment and thus facilitating the rapid growth of world trade.

In the long term, GATT conference countries have helped to put the global economy on a solid footing and thus improve the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people around the world. The GATT was born out of the Bretton Woods agreement. The Bretton Woods Summit also launched the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to coordinate global growth. The Organization`s stated objectives are to promote international economic cooperation, international trade, employment and exchange rate stability, including by providing Member States with financial resources to meet the needs of the balance of payments. IMF Member States have access to information on the economic policies of all Member States, the ability to influence the economic policies of other members, technical assistance in banking, tax and foreign exchange, financial assistance in times of payment difficulties and increased trade and investment opportunities. Voting rights at the IMF are based on a quota system. Each member has a number of « basic votes » (the basic number of votes of each member corresponds to 5.502% of the total), plus an additional vote for each special draw right (SDR) of 100,000 the rate of a member country. The special drawing right is the IMF`s unit of account and is a right to money. It is based on a basket of important international currencies. The basic votes create a slight distortion in favour of small countries, but the additional votes determined by the SDR outweigh this bias. As tariffs have decreased, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) have attracted increasing attention, as they are as distorting trade as flat-rate tariffs.

Non-tariff barriers consist of a series of rules, standards, standards, technical issues, administrative and bureaucratic procedures and other market-related barriers faced by exporters while trying to access a given market. The WTO is trying to highlight this area through a policy of transparency and information, but also by restrictions on the use of non-tariff barriers. Unlike the ITO charter, the GATT did not need congressional approval.