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Group. The Community should not therefore seek to avoid the issue in G18 but should maintain that existing procedures needed retouch- ing rather than fundamental change.
Discussion
5. Item 1: recent developments in trade policies and international
trade
The Chairman (Long) noted that the international trade situation had deteriorated; was doing so at an ever increasing rate; and saw as a result a very real and growing threat of a retreat from the principles and practice of the free and open international trading system. It was necessary and urgent to reverse this trend. The US (Barraclough) agreed. Indeed they suggested that the situation was even worse than outlined in the GATT's annual report on prospects for international trade. They thought a successful, substantial and early outcome to the MTN was essential to redress the balance. The credibility of all was at stake and the con- sequences of failure unthinkable. The Nordics (Boegh, Norway) and Switzerland (Dunkel) tended to agree. Japan (Motono) agreed that further expansion of the world economy was required and that some positive outcome from the MTN was essential. He then went on to protest at length and very defensively how earnestly Japan was applying itself to an accelerated schedule of measures designed to secure a growth rate of 6.7% in spite of the attendant political and social risks. For the Community Loeff (Commission)` agreed that there were dangers of protectionism, placing special emphasis on, the enormous and unprecedented problem of unemployment at current rates. So far as international trade was concerned, however, he thought that the GATT report was too pessimistic. Perhaps the most worrying factor was not so much protectionist measures actually taken as the persisting low level of confidence. This, analysis was, broadly shared by Canada (Eastham) and Austria (Segalla). But representatives of the developing countries (Argentina, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, India, Malaysia, Nigeria) took the line that no matter how serious the situation might be in the developed world it was far more serious in their own countries and that in its own interest the developed world must do something about this. Pakistan and India spiced their interventions with attacks on the behaviour of the developed countries in the negotiations on the future of the MFA (Kumar for India in terms which seemed to reflect a direct opposition to bilateral negotiation).
6. Long suggested that it was perhaps necessary to improve the mechanisms for monitoring protectionist tendencies. The GATT Secretariat had already done some work on producing statistics but it had proved extremely difficult to be sure what countries had done over the past four years. Only Norway, Canada and developing countries responded to this suggestion. The developing countries were mostly concerned with a stronger orientation of the GATT towards the developing world; or at least to implementation of the Tokyo Round in a way that helped them particularly. There was no real, enthusiasm among them for a new monitoring system as such. Norway (Boegh) supported the idea of a separate monitoring arrange- ment, but Canada (Eastham) considered that enough notification and monitoring arrangements already existed in the GATT.
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17.
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