UNITED NATIONS BODY WARNS— World Trade "Facing Serious Crisis”

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 August 1949, Page 5

UNITED NATIONS BODY WARNS— World Trade "Facing Serious Crisis”

GENEVA, August 30 (Rec. 11 a.m.).—The United Nations trade body warned today that world trade was facing a crisis, which was likely to grow far worse before there would be any improvement. The Interim Commission of the International Trade Organisation, in a report on the operations of the general agreement on tariffs and trade which includes Britain, the United States, and 21 other great trading nations, said: “World trade is facing a crisis of perhaps unprecedented gravity. Evon now, four years after the war, there are no signs of restored equilibrium and the present indications point to a deepening of the unbalance and a sharpening of the issues involved.”

The report said there was urgent need for a world trade organisation, such as was provided for in the Havana Charter. It said: “Marshall Aid averted a catastrophe for the countries of Europe, but it now seems far from certain that Europe will achieve stability by 1952. Depression is a cumulative process which gains momentum at an amazing speed. If there is no strong international organisation enjoying sufficient authority to co-ordinate the policies of the governments in an emergency and to limit the dire effects of the crisis, then the hard-won structure of economic co-operation may be blown away.”

The report was prepared at the request of the 23 members of the Geneva agreement who have been conducting trade negotiations at Annecy, France, for the past four, months.