WORLD TRADE CHARTER

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25380, 31 December 1947, Page 5

WORLD TRADE CHARTER

SUPPORT SOUGHT BY UNITED STATES

HOPES OF ESTABLISHING 1.T.0.

NEW YORK, December 29. “The United States delegation to the 1 world trade conference still hopes to win the support of enough countries to establish the projected International Trade Ocganisation as an effective working body,” says the Havana correspondent of the “New York Times.’’ “This is in spite of the apparent impossibility, as things now stand, of getting anything like the unanimous agreement of the 58 countries represented here.

“Voting rights in the conference are limited to the United Nations members, of which there are 49 present. A majority of 25 United Nations members was needed for the adoption of the charter drafted at Geneva, which will come into effect when it is ratified by 20 members of the Havana conference.

“An analysis of the speeches made by the delegates would indicate that only 16 votes could be counted on as certain for the Geneva charter without changes that would nullify its usefulness in the eyes of the great trading nations such as the United States. These include the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Cuba, and Brazil. “The United States is still standing firm against preferences except in the case of certain ones already in existence, but there seems to be a great possibility of a compromise without scrapping the United States’ principles and objectives on the issue of new preferential trade arrangements. “If certain groups of undeveloped countries were allowed to have regional preferential systems on some such temporary basis as the existing preferences, wnich include the British Empire preference system, some observers think that more than enough additional votes could be obtained to ensure the charter’s adoption without further substantial concessions.”