UN General Assembly
1961

34. This programme of economic integration has been gradually developing. It began to gain strength in 1958, with the signing of the Multilateral Treaty on Free Trade and Central American Integration, the Agreement for Central American Integration Industries, the Central American Agreement on Road Traffic, and the Central American Agreement on Uniform Road Signs and Signals. Also that same year, the five Central American countries adopted the Standard Central American Customs Nomenclature. Guatemala's present Government has redoubled its efforts to ensure that the programme shall develop to the full, lit 1959, there were concluded, the Central American Agreement on the Equalization of Import Duties and Charges and the Treaty on Economic Association between Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, providing for the establishment of a free trade area and for special arrangements such as preferential tariffs, quotas and gradual reduction of duties on some products. The Treaty further commits the signatory countries to setting up a development fund to finance public works and private projects designed to integrate their economies. At the end of 1960, the integration programme culminated in the signing by Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua of the General Treaty on Central American Economic Integration, the Agreement Constituting the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and a Protocol to the Central American Agreement on the Equalization of Import Duties and Charges, the object of which is to establish a Central American import tariff corresponding to the needs of economic integration and development in the area.