General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Fourth Meeting of the Contracting Parties:The contracting parties of GATT concluded their fourth meeting in Geneva on April 4, 1950. The group made arrangements for the third round of negotiations between the contracting parties to begin on September 28, in Torquay, England. One important project of the meeting was an examination of the operation of import and export controls in participating countries. Certain types of restriction were declared contrary to Article 11 of the General Agreement: 1) tying the sale of one item considered essential by some importing country to the purchase of something it would not otherwise purchase from that source; 2) making issuance of an export license dependent upon the exporter's getting an import permit from some other country (possibly a third country) for a product such a country would not otherwise purchase; 3) using the export-licensing procedure to enforce a minimum export price — with the object of keeping the prices of raw materials, for example, lower in the producing than in the importing country; 4) using the export-licensing procedure to withhold raw materials altogether from the competitors of a country's own export industries.