TARIFFS AND TRADE

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26261, 4 November 1950, Page 7

TARIFFS AND TRADE

THIRTY TWO NATIONS AT TORQUAY

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 3 Contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade will this week consider a United States proposal to let Japan join the agreement. The United States scheme is understood to be that Japan should be given the most favoured nation treatment which all contracting parties share and then later be given membership.

More than 1000 delegates representing 32 nations met at Torquay yesterday to open the fifth session ot the Tariffs and Trade Conference. The session is expected to discuss restricted practices in world trade and particularly complaints about the sterling area system of preferences. The contracting parties are also due to decide the duration of tariff agreements already negotiated at Geneva and Annecy, and of those coming out of the Torquay talks.

The meetings will be held privately but comm uniques are expected from time to time. In addition to the 32 contracting parties, six nations—Germany, Austria, the Philippines, Turkey, Peru, and Uruguay—are at Torquay negotiating for the first time. Their adherence to the general agreement and their admission as contracting parties will de pend on a vote of existing members. At yesterday's meeting delegates agreed to invite Jugoslavia to send an observer to the meeting.