General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade Research Paper

General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade - Research Paper Example Such direct and indirect non-tariff barriers can be suicidal to the interests of an exporting firm. It cannot run its business and the same applies to the importing country; if the importing country has alternative sources of getting the same product, it can manage but the exporting firm has to change its business planning strategy and need to find out new locations to export is stock, which can be dead stock if no other foreign marketplaces an order for the same produce. Management has to be always on the alert to take bold decisions as per the new reality. Scope and horizon of GATT are necessary to know before knowing the basic principles of GATT. GATT 1947 rules were framed to be applicable in trade of goods only. GATT 1947 played a dominant role in minimizing tariff and non-tariff barriers in world trade but worldwide problems were surfaced where GATT could not play a positive role in resolving the issues. Certain areas of business were not part of the GATT responsibilities like trade in services and agriculture-related issues of continuous quarrels among nations. Trade in textile and apparel was left out of the GATT scope because of the politically touchy nature of these industries. Left out of the scope of GATT were intellectual property rights issues. GATT could not succeed in controlling â€Å"unfair trade† practices ((Schaffer et al., 2009, p. 297). GATT 1994 came in effect to address the limitations of the previous agreement on trade. GATT 1994 included two most important agreements on WTO Final Agreement representing the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations and the WTO Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization. GATT 1994 included other than the earlier provisions of GATT 1947, a number of multilateral trade agreements on particular issues ((Schaffer et al., 2009, p. 297).