UN General Assembly
1975

185. In this respect, the truth has been repeatedly explained by OPEC members. On our part, in the past two years, we have on a number of occasions presented figures demonstrating that an artificially low oil price had been maintained for almost a quarter of a century before 1974. During that period of time, our countries had been plagued more and more by the spiraling inflation in the industrialized countries. 186. Yet the oil polemic has become more stubbornly partisan in recent months. Our critics seem to have forgotten or overlooked the fact that the adjustment in oil prices was in response to this high rate of inflation and that such adjustment contributed only insignificantly not more than 2 per cent to the rising prices, while the cost of the goods imported by oil-producing countries from the industrialized world rose by an average of 35 per cent.