Poland confronted many special problems when it access to the GATT as a socialist country since it had implemented planned economy for a rather long time after the liberation.

　　The Agreements of GATT and Poland's Accession

　　The GATT member took up the rights and the duties basically in a state of equilibrium. If a country wanted to gain the benefit as a GATT member, it must take certain duties. All market economy countries that accessed to the GATT would exchange other signatory countries?preference upon the commitment of tariff reduction. But Polish planned economy system was different from that of market economy nations. This triggered the debates over what duties Poland should take to get other signatory countries?favors in GATT. Many regulations of GATT exerted immediate influence on Polish access such as Article 17, Item 4 of Article 3, Item 4 of Article 2 in GATT and the note of Article 17 of GATT, etc.

　　Poland applied for accession to the GATT officially in March 1959. Both sides didn't come to an agreement until 1966 after several years?negotiations, and the accession agreement was signed in December 1966. The agreement set up regulations in connection with four issues: 1) Poland would take up about 11 duties. It assured that the annual growth rate of import totally from all GATT signatory members would be more than 7%; 2) Every signatory member should abolish discriminative embargo and quantity limits on Poland, and also assure that they wouldn't add discriminate factors; 3) Every signatory member should define the deadline of abolishing quantity limits transitional period in annual negotiations with Poland; 4) When Poland exported some product increasingly and brought about serious damage to another nation, the damaged nation may put import quantity limits on this product independently on condition that both sides couldn't come to an agreement from negotiation.

　　According to the agreement , Poland in fact met a different treatment from other members as a formal GATT member. To a large extent, relations between Poland and other nations were still based on bilateral treaties, and MFN treatment also had a premise of mutual concession, which was an apple of discord for future

　　Changes After Poland Accession to GATT

　　There was actually a leap in economy after Poland accession to the GATT. Poland foreign trade increased drastically and foreign trade structure improved obviously. Poland economic structure as well as the people's living standard was also improved along with a great amount of input of science technology and capital. The whole nation's economic strength was boosted up.

　　According to concrete analysis, the benefits Poland gained after accession to GATT were primarily the following: 1) It gained the MFN treatment given by signatory countries and the benefits from multiple tariff reduction of GATT, which played a positive role in Polish export expansion, and increased the annual average rate of foreign trade to 10.6%; 2) It broke the developed signatory countries?(especially the European Economic Community) discriminative embargo and quantity limits, introduced substantial advanced technologies in a short time, and created favored conditions for the economic growth in 1970s. 3) It took the advantage of multi-lateral trade system of GATT to strengthen negotiating position, which could help to resolve conflicts. For example, in January 1972, Denmark cancelled import quantity limits to some GATT signatory countries, but still remained it to Poland. Poland considered it as disobeying the commitments that Denmark should bear to Poland under the General Agreement, and was in inconsistent with the regulations in the agreement which Poland participated in, as it added discriminated factors of the import quantity limits to Poland. Poland put forward an appeal in annual negotiation. Under the pressure of public opinion in GATT and the mediation of GATT secretariat, the discrimination Poland confronted was abolished by Denmark. 4) It gained GATT's technological aids and counsel services. For example, Poland could collect in time all signatory countries?foreign trade policies and laws, foreign trade control measures, custom tariffs, information and statistic data of import and export from GATT, which helped Poland aware of the changes in international market in time and make out its corresponding solutions.

　　In a word, we must catch the present favorable opportunity, make full use of the advantages we can get after accession to the GATT, try to push our foreign trade to a new stage, thereby promote our market economy to a higher level.