The International Wheat Council held its twenty-ninth session in London, April 5–12, 1960, under the chairmanship of Sir Edwin McCarthy (Australia), for the purpose of reviewing the world wheat situation in accordance with Article 21 of the 1959 International Wheat Agreement. Representatives of 30 countries or territories attended the meeting, along with observers from the UN, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the European Economic Community. According to the press, the results of the first annual review of the world wheat situation, published on May 25, 1960, confirmed that the national wheat policies of the majority of exporting and importing countries were in open conflict with international realities, inasmuch as the world wheat market had been overshadowed for the past five years by burdensome surpluses and, despite government-assisted programs which had raised the volume of world wheat and flour exports to over 30 million metric tons a season, there was no prospect that the imbalance between supplies and demand would disappear during the next five years.