What is GATT?

GAAT stands for General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT), signed in 1947 by 23 countries, is a treaty minimizing barriers to international
trade by eliminating or reducing quotas, tariffs, and subsidies. It was intended to boost
economic recovery after World War II.
After World War II, governments began negotiating multilateral trade agreements to form an
organization regulating international trade. Until the formation of an organization, a group of 23
countries formed a multilateral trade agreement known as GATT.

Purpose of GATT
The major purpose of the establishment of GATT was to promote trade liberalization. For trade
liberalization, member countries of GATT used to get together to negotiate on the strategies
that are necessary to liberalize trade. Such types of meetings between GATT members were
known as trade rounds.
GATT was expanded and refined over the years, leading to the creation in 1995 of the World
Trade Organization (WTO), which absorbed the organization created to implement GATT. By
then, 125 nations were signatories to its agreements, which covered about 90% of global trade.
The Council for Trade in Goods (Goods Council) is now responsible for the GATT and consists of
representatives from all WTO member countries. As of September 2022, the chair of the Goods
Council is Etienne Oudot de Dainville. The council has 10 committees that address subjects
including market access, agriculture, subsidies, and anti-dumping measures.
Key Aspects
The GATT has many key aspects.
1. It requires member states to apply tariffs in a non-discriminate way, meaning they
should apply to all member states equally with limited exceptions.
2. GATT limits the ability of countries to place higher restrictions on goods from other
member states than within their own country. Other major sources of friction for
international trade such as quotas, dumping, and subsidies are very limited under GATT,
reducing the ability of countries to be singled out by another country.
2. What is WTO?
3. What is the world bank and the United Nations?
4. What is the IMF, which countries get loans from IMF and which repay it and become
successful or deploved countries? In the context of Pakistan what role it plays and where it lies,
what benefits and drawbacks in the future and currently