country might withdraw the above-mentioned liberalization measures should it find that it could not continue to apply them. Liberalization of total OEEC private trade increased from 83 percent on December 31, 1954, to 86 percent on December 31, 1955,8 and 89 percent on January 1, 1957 (table 1). The countries that attained the greatest increases in trade liberalization in the 2 years from December 31, 1954, to January 1, 1957, were Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom; before 1954 these countries had lagged behind most members of OEEC in liberalizing their trade. At the beginning of 1957 only 10 of the 17 OEEC countries-Austria, Belgium, West Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom-had freed 90 percent or more of their private OEEC-area imports from quantitative restrictions, including 75 percent or more of their trade in each of the 3 specified categories. Switzerland is not included in this group because it failed to attain a liberalization of 75 percent in the category of food and feedstuffs. Denmark, France, and Norway failed to attain a 90-percent liberalization of their respective overall imports, although they either exceeded or came close to the goal of 75-percent liberalization in the 3 specified categories. Norway had the lowest overall liberalization-78 percent-of any of the Western European countries. Special provisions of the OEEC Code of Liberalization exempt Greece, Iceland, and Turkey from the general requirement to attain 90-percent liberalization. Actually, Greece has attained a very high de facto liberalization of imports from the OEEC area. Since Greece's effort represents an experimental measure of which OEEC was not officially notified, its 95-percent overall liberalization is not included in the average liberalization for the entire OEEC area. Because of its balance-ofpayments position, Iceland has been exempted from the requirements of the OEEC Code of Liberalization; its overall liberalization has remained at 29 percent for several years. In April 1953 OEEC permitted Turkey to withdraw all its liberalization measures; at the beginning of 1957 Turkish liberalization still remained in a zero position. The liberalization lists that individual OEEC countries have established for the OEEC area generally are much broader than those that they have established for the dollar area (table 2). Only the Benelux countries, Greece, and Switzerland have eliminated virtually all discrimination against dollar goods; the liberalization lists of these countries are substantially the same for the OEEC and the dollar areas. Turkey practices "negative" nondiscrimination by having no liberalization list for either area. A comparison of the percentages of liberalization for the OEEC and the dollar areas indicates that France, Austria, and Italy practice the * See Operation of the Trade Agreements Program (ninth report), p. 139. As stated in the note to table 2, Italy narrowed its discriminatory gap by increasing its overall dollar liberalization from 39 percent to 71 percent. TABLE 1.-OEEC countries: Percentage of private imports from the OEEC area freed from quantitative restrictions under liberalization lists, as of Jan. 1, 1957 1 Except for Austria, for which the base year is 1952, and for the Federal Republic of Germany, for which the base year is 1949. 2 In July 1956 the OEEC authorized the Benelux countries to use 1955 in the future as the base year for calculating liberalization percentages. On this basis (not used in calculating the averages in the last line of the table), the Benelux liberalization for all third countries was 89.3 percent for food and feedstuffs, 99.2 percent for raw materials, 94.4 percent for manufactured products, and 96.5 percent for the total. The liberalization percentages actually in force for France on Jan. 1, 1957 (of which the OEEC was not officially notified and which were not used in calculating the averages in the last line of the table), were 72.9 percent for food and feedstuffs, 96.3 percent for raw materials, 71.6 percent for manufactured products, and 82.3 percent for the total. Greece has de facto liberalized imports from the OEEC area, as shown by these percentages; but this liberalization represents an experimental measure of which the OEEC was not officially notified. As of Jan. 1, 1957, Turkey had no liberalization list for the OEEC area. Source: Based on calculations in Organization for European Economic Cooperation, 8th Report of the OEEC: Europe To-Day and in 1960, C(57)18, Paris, 1957, vol. I, p. 78. greatest degree of discrimination against the dollar area. There is somewhat less discrimination by Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; West Germany and Iceland practice the least discrimination. The percentages of liberalization shown in tables 1 and 2 indicate only the approximate degree of discrimination practiced by the various countries because the percentages for the dollar area (table 2) are based on imports from that area in 1953, whereas the percentages for the OEEC area (table 1) are for most of the OEEC countries-based on imports in 1948. Moreover, the percentages shown for the dollar area (table 2) are those for May 1, 1957, whereas the percentages for the OEEC area TABLE 2.-OEEC countries: Percentage of private imports from the United States and Canada1 freed from quantitative restrictions under liberalization lists, as of May 1, 1957 1 Some of the OEEC countries have liberalized imports from the United States and Canada, but not from the dollar area as a whole; the percentages shown in this table are for imports from the United States and Canada only. * Includes only private imports from the United States and Canada of commodities that appear on the liberalization lists of the OEEC countries that have such lists. These lists cover commodities from which import controls have been removed, as distinct from imports that are still under restriction but may be admitted freely by administrative action. Inclusion of imports freely admitted but still subject to the application of restrictive measures would increase the coverage appreciably for some of the countries. The Benelux countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) introduced a .common liberalization list for the dollar area on June 1, 1954; this list is substantially the same list that these countries apply to imports from OEEC countries. The percentages for Iceland do not reflect the new liberalization measures of February 1957. The United States has no trade agreement with Ireland, either under the Genera Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or on a bilateral basis. The United States has no trade agreement with Portugal, either under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or on a bilateral basis. As of May 1, 1957, Turkey had no liberalization list for the dollar area; imports from the United States and Canada and other dollar countries are controlled on the basis of essentiality and the availability of dollar exchange. Average does not include Turkey. Source: Organization for European Economic Cooperation, Liberalisation of Europe's Dollar Trade, Second Report, June 1957, C(57)81, Paris, 1957, p. 13. Note.-Between May 1 and June 30, 1957, 3 of the OEEC countries took actions that altered the percentages of liberalization shown in this table: France suspended all its trade liberalization measures, except those on coal and steel (European Coal and Steel Community); West Germany increased its overall dollar trade liberalization by about 1 or 2 percentage points; and Italy increased its total dollar liberalization from 39 percent to 71 percent. (table 1) are those for January 1, 1957. For example, although the degree of liberalization of the Benelux countries is shown in the tables to be 86 percent for the dollar area and 91 percent for the OEEC area, the Benelux liberalization lists for both areas actually comprise substantially the same commodities. Liberalization of dollar trade Between January 1, 1956, and May 1, 1957, the liberalization of total private OEEC imports from the United States and Canada, calculated on the basis of the import trade in 1953, increased from 54 percent to 61 percent. For individual categories, the increase was from 64 percent to 73 percent for food and feedstuffs, from 44 percent to 67 percent for raw materials, and from 27 percent to 42 percent for manufactured products.10 The percentages shown in table 2 reflect only liberalization measures in effect on May 1, 1957. Between that time and the end of the period covered by this report (June 30, 1957), the Federal Republic of Germany increased its liberalization of dollar imports to about 93 percent, and Italy increased its liberalization to 71 percent. On June 19, 1957, on the other hand, France suspended all its dollar liberalization measures. Although the percentages of liberalization shown in table 2 are based on private imports into the respective countries from the United States and Canada in 1953, the liberalization lists of the OEEC countries also generally apply to imports from other countries in the dollar area. Not all OEEC dollar liberalization lists, however, apply to all "dollar" countries. The broadest lists of dollar countries-those of Greece, Iceland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom-include the United States and its territories and possessions, Canada, all the Central American countries, and Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, the Philippines, and Liberia." The dollar liberalization lists of Austria, France, and Portugal, on the other hand, apply only to the United States (and its territories and possessions) and Canada. 12 All the other OEEC countries exclude two or more countries from the benefits of their dollar liberalization lists for the United States and Canada. Austria, West Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom were the only OEEC countries that increased their liberalization of dollar goods between January 1, 1956, and June 30, 1957.13 In the 10 These categories are as defined in annex A, sec. II of the OEEC Code of Liberalization. 11 Goods liberalized for the United States and Canada by Greece, Iceland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are liberalized not only for those dollar countries but also for the rest of the world. 12 Portugal extends its dollar liberalization to imports from the United States, but not to those from United States territories and possessions. 13 As a hard-currency country, Switzerland has never had to discriminate against imports from the dollar area to protect its balance-of-payments position. Since 1932, various following discussion of the action that these six countries took during that period, such terms as "dollar imports" and "percentages of dollar liberalization" refer to imports from the United States and Canada only. Austria. On October 15, 1956, Austria placed in effect a second liberalization list for dollar imports, thereby raising the percentage of liberalization from 8 percent to 40 percent.14 This liberalization list embraces 275 items of the national statistical nomenclature. Some of the principal commodities affected are rice, raisins, oranges, oilcakes, mineral oils, raw cotton (liberalized on January 1, 1957), raw wool, reclaimed rubber, raw hides and skins, heavy tires, leather, cellulose acetate, pig iron, iron and steel sheets and plates, some ferroalloys, certain types of engines, certain agricultural and textile machinery, electrical equipment, locomotives and tractors, typewriters and calculating machines, and certain chemicals. The percentage of liberalization for food and feedstuffs remains very low (4 percent) because corn and wheat are not included in the dollar liberalization list. These two grains comprise the great bulk of private imports of food into Austria. 15 Austria's discrimination between the OEEC area and the dollar area is still very great, particularly in the category of foods and feedstuffs; some of the items which the United States would like to have liberalized for the dollar area are soybeans, flaxseed, seed corn and other seed grains, fruit juices, certain meats, and butter. Most of Austria's remaining import controls are maintained for protectionist reasons, a fact which clearly raises the problem posed by the restrictions in the General Agreement against the use of import controls for other than balance-of-payments reasons. Germany (Federal Republic).—The Federal Republic of Germany only slightly increased its dollar liberalization between July 1, 1956, and June 30, 1957. Before September 1956 West Germany had introduced 4 dollar liberalization lists, 16 applicable to 4,770 of the 6,000 items in the West German statistical nomenclature, which resulted in a liberalization of 90 percent of its dollar imports. Although the fifth liberalization list, of May 24, 1957, contained 500 additional items, these additions increased West Germany's percentage of liberalization by only 1 or 2 points. About 700 items in the country's statistical nomenclature are still not liberalized. The fifth list of liberalized items consists almost entirely of manufactured products. Among the most important items are various organic and imports into Switzerland have been subject to licensing controls, but the controls have been applied on a nondiscriminatory basis. Switzerland's total liberalization of imports from all sources is very high. 14 Austria's first liberalization list of dollar imports, which was applied in July 1955, affected 85 items of the Austrian statistical classification. 15 Although wheat, corn, and other grains are counted as private trade by Austria, actually these and other food items are controlled by monopoly trading organizations. 16 On September 5, 1956, a few additional products not included in the fourth list were freed. 474357-59-11 |