• by IPS Correspondents (geneva)
• Thursday, December 08, 1994
• Inter Press Service

GENEVA, Dic 08 (IPS) - GATT Director General Peter Sutherland officially announced Thursday that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would come into operation on Jan 1, 1995.

He made the announcement at a press conference following a meeting of representatives of member countries of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

He told reporters that all the GATT members were keen to see the WTO come into operation on New Year's Day, following the ratification of the GATT accords on trade liberalisation in April, this year.

GATT member countries will meet again Friday to discuss various aspects of the operations of the WTO, like its budget and financial resources, transition measures and the organisation of the administrative cadres.

GATT officials however said Friday's talks would not determine who the WTO's first president will be. The candidates in line for the top post are former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, former Italian foreign trade minister Renato Ruggiero, and South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, Chulsu Kim.

According to GATT officials and South American diplomats here, Ruggiero currently has the most support although Salinas de Gortari has the backing of the United States.

According to GATT statistics, the elimination of trade barriers reached under the Uruguay Round of GATT, will produce an average increase in world income estimated at around 510 billion dollars annually.

This figure would be realised when the Uruguay Round accords are completely implemented by the year 2005, said a recent GATT report.

The revenues would be divided as follows: 122 billion dollars to the United States, 164 billion dollars to the European Union, 27 billion dollars to Japan and 116 billion dollars to developing countries and those Central and Eastern European economies that are in transition.

According to the report, the developed countries have agreed to reduce their import tariffs on industrial manufactured goods by 40 percent.

In the agricultural sector, the reforms should see a 36 per cent reduction in export subsidies by the developed countries, which would represent a drop from 22.5 billion dollars to 14.5 billion dollars. Also, subsidies to farmers would fall by 18 per cent from 197 billion to 162 billion dollars.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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