UN General Assembly
1986

The next round of multilateral negotiations by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) must therefore focus on non-tariff barriers much more than in the past if it is to produce meaningful results, since those barriers have become the most important and pervasive obstacles to trade today. The GATT institutions should also be reformed in order to strengthen the international trading system and help reduce the arbitrary and discriminatory protectionist measures of developed countries against the exports of developing countries. Because the same developing countries are also debtors which need to run trade surpluses to service their debts, the growth of world trade volumes, unimpeded by protection practices, is essential for their development process. Many developing countries enter the second half of this decade faced with the proxies of restoring domestic growth within what is for some an unfavorable external environment. Lower interest rates and declining oil prices perhaps accorded some relief last year and in the earlier half of this year, but they have been counterbalanced by the slower growth of world trade, deteriorating terns of trade and higher trade barriers. In addition, net long-tern capital inflows have maintained their downward trend. In fact, developing countries were making a net transfer of financial resources to the developed countries in 1984. Last year total interest payments on external public and private long-tera debt exceeded net long-tern inflows by $22 billion.