The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a multilateral agreement regulating international trade. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." It was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization (ITO). GATT was signed in 1948 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World Trade Organization in 1995.
The original GATT text (GATT 1958) is still in effect under the WTO framework, subject to the modifications of GATT 1994.
Read more about General Agreement On Tariffs And Trade: Rounds, GATT and The World Trade Organization
Famous quotes containing the words general, agreement and/or trade:
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there’s no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it’s an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“We are the trade union for pensioners and children, the trade union for the disabled and the sick ... the trade union for the nation as a whole.”
—Edward Heath (b. 1916)