Israel Accepted As Full Member of International Trade Organization

Israel was accepted yesterday as a full member of the leneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the international organization which eals with the reduction of tariff barriers to trade among member countries.

Israel was elevated to full from associate membership by a vote of 32 of the 35 member states. Pakistan voted against Israel. Two abstentions were made in secret but it was learned that one abstaining country was Indonesia.

Barbossa de Silva of Brazil, the chairman of the current session of GATT, welcomed Israel and expressed the hope that Israel’s cooperation would be profitable for all members. He stressed Israel’s important and constructive contributions to the work of GATT since its provisional joining in 1959.

Moshe Bartur, head of the Israel delegation, expressed his unqualified belief that the spirit of understanding of all problems and the atmosphere of “give and take” would prevail in future relations between Israel and GATT. The economic benefits accruing to Israel from its GATT membership were expected to be considerable since GATT now includes almost all the western countries.

ISRAEL’S CONCERN OVER EUROPEAN MARKET OUTLINED IN GENEVA

The emergence of the European Common Market “means for Israel a gradual progressive exclusion and separation from the economic area to which it belongs,” M. Bartur told the GATT meeting.

The Israeli official explained at length Israel’s situation and growing concern as the six-nation market made plans to include Britain and other European countries while ignoring or rebuffing Israeli overtures to some kind of association. He said that Israel’s situation was unique in that about 65 percent of its foreign trade was carried out within the trading patterns of Western Europe.

“The European community in its common outer tariff has established a 20 percent customs duty for oranges as compared with an average of 14 percent for the individual national tariffs of the six ECM members,” he pointed out. No offer to negotiate on this item was made to Israel, a major citrus exporter to Europe, during the current GATT conference, he emphasized.

He warned that countries with such foreign trade problems as Israel “will have no choice but to adopt restrictive measures and reduce export prices.” He added such measures would strain “their already weak economies and might easily involve their becoming entangled in a growing number of trade disputes or in undesired and undesirable deflections of traditional trade patterns.”

The Israeli official said his address was made from the perspective of a developing country dependent on expanding foreign trade without belonging to any of the present powerful economic groups. “We are living in one world and its peace and prosperity has become indivisible,” he stressed.

The meeting is being attended by more than 30 officials who are responsible for trade and economic affairs of countries in western Europe, Africa, Asia, the United States and Canada, as well as by Ministerial members of the European Economic Community Commission.