-------------- G -------------- G-5. See Group of 7. G-7. See Group of 7. G-77. See Group of 77. GATE PRICE. See Variable Levy. GATT. See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. GATT MINISTERIAL MEETING OF 1982. The first meeting of the GATT Contracting Parties at the ministerial level since the Tokyo Round. The 1982 meeting approved a GATT Work Program for the 1980s looking toward continued liberalization of world trade,with particular attention to trade policy issues that previously received relatively little attention in GATT, such as barriers to agricultural trade, services and obstacles to developing-country exports. See also General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Liberalization; Services; Tokyo Round; and Williamsburg Summit. GATT PANEL. A group of trade experts convened by the GATT Contracting Parties to investigate any trade measures in dispute, make findings about the consistency of the measures under the GATT, and provide recommendations as to what the Contracting Parties should request the disputing parties to do, if anything, to meet their obligations under the GATT. Generally, the Contracting Parties select three officials of contracting parties that are not participants in the dispute; while they serve on the panel, these officials are expected to act independently of their governments' interests. See also Arbitration; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Dispute Settlement; and Panel of Experts. GATT WORK PROGRAM FOR THE 1980s. See GATT Ministerial Meeting of 1982. GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE (GATT). A multilateral trade agreement among autonomous economic entities (not necessarily countries) aimed at expanding international trade as a means of raising world welfare. The GATT was signed in 1947, as an interim agreement. It has been recognized worldwide as the key international institution concerned with multinational trade negotiations since it became clear that the U.S. Senate would not ratify the Havana Charter of 1948, which would have created an International Trade Organization (ITO) as a Specialized Agency of the United Nations System, similar to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Interim Commission of the ITO (ICITO), which was established to facilitate the creation of the ITO, subsequently became the GATT Secretariat. Provisions of the General Agreement are applied reciprocally among its Contracting Parties to reduce uncertainty in connection with commercial transactions across national borders. The cornerstone of the GATT has been traditionally the most-favored-nation clause (Article 1 of the General Agreement), but in the 1970s and 1980s, regional and other trade preference systems became pervasive, weakening the role of GATT in ensuring equal market access among GATT members. The designation "GATT" also refers to the organization headquartered at Geneva through which the Contracting Parties consult on a day-to-day basis regarding the application of GATT provisions. The organization also provides a framework for negotiations -- called "Rounds" -- within which Contracting Parties negotiate to lower tariffs and other barriers to trade and a consultative mechanism that may be invoked by governments seeking to protect their trade interests. With the Tokyo and Uruguay Rounds, the focus of trade liberalization shifted from lowering tariffs to the elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade. Currently, there are 103 GATT Contracting Parties (CPs), accounting for approximately 85 percent of world trade, and some 30 additional countries and dependencies apply GATT provisions on a "de facto" basis and may someday assume full status as Contracting Parties. A number of other countries and customs territories are also seeking membership, including China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Panama, Paraguay and Honduras. The GATT is the principal point of reference for the conduct of U.S. trade policy. U.S. association with the GATT is implemented through or by an executive order, and is not a treaty obligation. U.S. observance of GATT provisions depends on congressional approval of implementing legislation as well as the policy orientation of the president. See also Articles of GATT; Bretton Woods Conference; Codes of Conduct; Compensation; Consultations; Contracting Party; GATT Panel; Grandfather Clause; International Trade Center UNCTAD/GATT; Liberalization; Licensing; Most-Favored-Nation Treatment; Multilateral Trade Negotiations; Principal Supplier; Protocol of Provisional Application; Quantitative Restrictions; Round; Special and Differential Treatment; and Welfare. GENERAL TARIFF. A tariff that applies to imports from countries that do not enjoy either preferential or most-favored-nation tariff treatment. Where the general tariff rate differs from the most-favored-nation rate, the general tariff is usually an older and higher rate. See also Conventional Tariff; Most-Favored- Nation Treatment; Preferences; and Tariff. GENERALIZED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES (GSP). A concept developed within UNCTAD to encourage the expansion of manufactured and semi-manufactured exports from developing countries by making such goods more competitive in developed-country markets through tariff preferences. The GSP reflects international agreement, negotiated at UNCTAD-II (New Delhi, 1968), that a temporary and non-reciprocal grant of preferences by developed countries to developing countries would be equitable and, in the long term, mutually beneficial. To meet its GSP commitment, each industrialized nation determined its own system of preferences, specifying the goods, the margins of preference, and in some cases,the value or volume of goods that would benefit from preferential treatment. Twenty-seven industrialized countries, including the United States now maintain GSP programs. The U.S. Trade Act of 1974 authorized the first U.S. GSP arrangement for the period of January 1, 1976 until January 4, 1985. The U.S. program was extended through July 4, 1993, by the Trade and Tariff Act of 1984. An extension of the GSP program in its existing form through September 30, 1994, was secured under a budget legislation package. The Clinton administration is expected to introduce legislation to authorize long-term renewal GSP program in 1994. Approximately 4,100 categories of articles in the tariff schedule have been designated as eligible for duty free entry into the United States under GSP. But the 1974 legislation explicitly indicated a number of "exceptions," including textiles, clothing, watches, steel, footwear, glass, some electronic articles and other sensitive products that could not enter the United States duty free under the GSP authority. The Trade Act of 1974 also stated that any country supplying more than 50 percent of total U.S. imports of a particular item in one year, or exceeding a specified dollar amount for that item, would be ineligible for GSP benefits for that product during the following year because it had no "competitive need" for such benefits. The U.S. Trade Agreements Act of 1979 provided that the 50-percent limit may be waived for a product falling below a certain dollar amount that was to be adjusted annually to reflect changes in the U.S. gross national product. Some developing countries are ineligible to receive U.S. GSP benefits: those that participate in OPECor "other cartel-like arrangements," those that nationalize property of U.S. citizens without providing satisfactory compensation; those that fail to cooperate in international drug control efforts; most communist states; those that exceed a certain per capita GNP; those that fail to maintain reasonable and equitable market access or adequate intellectual property protection for U.S. goods, services and investment; and those that fail to ensure internationally recognized worker rights. The Enabling Clause, adopted as a consequence of the Tokyo Round, established a legal basis within GATT for extending GSP benefits, notwithstanding GATT's most-favored-nation clause. See also Competitive; Enabling Clause; Infant Industry Argument; Lome Convention; Margin of Preference; North-South Trade; Preferences; Sensitive Products; Special and Differential Treatment; Trade Act of 1974; Trade Agreements Act of 1979; and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. GLOBAL QUOTAS. See Quantitative Restrictions. GLOBAL SYSTEM OF TRADE PREFERENCES (GSTP). An objective developed by the Group of 77 within the UNCTAD ECDC (Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries) program looking toward the negotiation of special intra-developing country preferences and the reduction of non-tariff barriers impeding South-South trade. See also Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries; Group of 77; Non-Tariff Barriers; Preferences; South-South Trade; and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. GNG. See Final Act. GNS. See Final Act. GOODS. Inherently useful and relatively scarce articles or commodities -- distinct from services -- produced by the manufacturing, mining, construction and agricultural sectors of the economy. Goods are important economically because they may be exchanged for money or other goods and services. See also Capital Goods; Commodity; Consumer Goods; Money; Price; Production; Services; and Utility. GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT POLICIES AND PRACTICES. The means and mechanisms through which official government agencies purchase goods and services. Government procurement policies and practices are non-tariff barriers to trade, according to GATT, if they discriminate in favor of domestic suppliers when competitive imported goods are cheaper or of better quality. The United States pressed for an international agreement during the Tokyo Round to ensure that government purchases of goods entering into international trade should be based on specific, published regulations that prescribe open procedures for submitting bids, as had been the traditional practice in the United States. Most governments had traditionally awarded such contracts on the basis of bids solicited from selected domestic suppliers, or through private negotiations with suppliers that involved little, if any, competition. Other countries, including the United States, gave domestic suppliers a specified preferential margin, as compared with foreign suppliers. The Government Procurement Code negotiated during the Tokyo Round sought to reduce, if not eliminate, the "Buy National" bias underlying such practices by improving transparency and equity in national procurement practices and by ensuring effective recourse to dispute settlement procedures. The code became effective January 1, 1981. See also Codes of Conduct; Conditional Most-Favored-Nation Treatment; Discrimination; Dispute Settlement; Non-Tariff Barriers; Tokyo Round; Trade Agreements Act of 1979; and Transparency. GRADUATION. The presumption that individual developing countries are capable of assuming greater responsibilities and obligations in the international community -- within GATT or the World Bank, for example -- as their economies advance, as through industrialization, export development and rising living standards. In this sense, graduation implies that donor countries may remove the more advanced developing countries from eligibility for all or some products under the Generalized System of Preferences. Within the World Bank, graduation moves a country from dependence on concessional grants to non-concessional loans from international financial institutions and private banks. See also Developing Countries; Generalized System of Preferences; Loan; Newly Industrializing Countries; Official Development Assistance; and World Bank. GRANDFATHER CLAUSE. A provision in a legal instrument, such as GATT, that allows countries that accede to it to maintain preexisting domestic legislation inconsistent with provisions of that instrument. See also Accession; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Protocol of Provisional Application; and Residual Restrictions. GRANTS. See Bounties. GROUP A. See Group of 77. GROUP B. Originally a designation for the developed market-economy countries participating in UNCTAD. In recent years the term has also been used to refer to these same countries when they meet in OECD and other international organizations to develop positions relevant to North-South economic issues. See also Market Economy; North-South Trade; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. GROUP C. See Group of 77. GROUP D. Prior to their 1989-1991 conversion to market-oriented policies, Group D consisted of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe participating in UNCTAD, excluding Romania and Yugoslavia (which were considered members of the Group of 77) and Albania (which did not actively participate in UNCTAD and other elements of the United Nations system). Group D countries showed a particular interest in the division of the UNCTAD Secretariat concerned with "Trade Between Countries with Different Economic Systems." See also State Trading Nations;and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. GROUP OF 7 (G-7). The Group of Seven is comprised of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Canada. It consults regularly for the purpose of coordinating economic policies to achieve sustained economic growth with price stability, foster stability in exchange markets, and promote adjustment in external imbalances. The group also addresses other pressing international economic issues that affect global economic performance. Finance ministers and central bank governors represent their countries at G-7 meetings; additional meetings are held by the deputies of finance ministers. The G-7 is the successor to the Group of 5 (G-5),which was composed of the same countries less Canada and Italy. See also Plaza Accord. GROUP OF 77. Originally, the 77 developing countries represented at UNCTAD-1 in 1964. The delegates established the precedent of meeting together to attempt to develop common positions on major conference agenda items in advance of plenary UNCTAD meetings. The Group of 77 comprises UNCTAD Groups "A" (the African and Asian Groups, with the notable exceptions of Israel and South Africa) and "C" (the Latin American Group). More than 120 developing countries are now members of the "Group of 77" and are represented at its meetings in Geneva, New York, Vienna and Rome, where they seek to develop common positions on trade and development issues under consideration in UNCTAD and other U.N. bodies. See also Developing Countries; Economic Cooperation Among Developing Countries; Non-Aligned Movement; North-South Trade; and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. GRUNDY TARIFF. See Tariff Act of 1930. GSP. See Generalized System of Preferences. GSTP. See Global System of Trade Preferences.