New Rules To Speed Trade Proposals

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27471, 4 October 1954, Page 6

New Rules To Speed Trade Proposals

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, October 1. The Finance Ministers and representatives of eight Commonwealth nations were reported to have pledged themselves to a vigorous programme to strengthen the sterling area economically and drive ahead to convertibility in the two-day conference which ended here today. An official source told a Reuter cprrespondent that one of the prime decisions taken during the closed door discussions ws that the flow o commerce throughout the worV. should be speeded ,up through a nev. set of trade rules.

The eight Commonwealth finance leaders—from the United Kingdom Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan Ceylon, South Africa, Canada, and India—envisaged the integration of many of the functions of the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, the correspondent said. It was learned that the Ministers discussed in detail some of the complicated machinery necessary to liberalise world trade. The International Monetary Fund was designed as a buffer for the economies of those countries which ventured from behind the protection of trade barriers and currency restrictions. G.A.T.T., the international trade organisation, was more concerned with the rules of commerce. A combined G.A.T.T:-Fund committee to guide the course of world commerce was one of the suggestions put forward.