Yugoslavia's accession to GATT had undergone several stages: in 1950,GATT accepted Yugoslavia as an observer; on May 16, 1959, Yugoslavia proclaimed to accept the general principles and guiding principles of GATT and agreed to develop trade relationship with other GATT members on this basis, and requested the preferential treatment as GATT members according to parallel principle; on July 1, 1960, Yugoslavia submitted the temporary tariff schedule to GATT and the permanent tariff reduction and cancellation schedule as well as its application for membership in next year. On November 13,1962, Yugoslavia became a temporary member of GATT, and on April 5, 1966, Yugoslavia became an official GATT member. The main reason for GATT to accept Yugoslavia was that, the GATT members believed, although Yugoslavia government could exert influence on its economy, its domestic enterprises owned autonomous rights of manufacture and price. According to Yugoslavian law, workers were real owners of enterprises, so the enterprises were operated and administrated by workers instead of government. Besides, the government encouraged fair competition among enterprises. Yugoslavia didn't set up official central monopolizing agencies to administrate foreign trades, thus all enterprises in Yugoslavia would be granted the rights to undertake import and export trade. The government's administration of foreign trade was the only administration of foreign exchange, so GATT believed Yugoslavia had met the essential demand of market economy system.
As an undeveloped small country, the role of foreign trade as an "engine" couldn't be substituted in Yugoslavia economy, the fair trade status that could be attained after accession to the GATT would pour oilsintosthe "engine".
GATT brought challenges to Yugoslavia and the agony of failure to itself. The reduction of tariff led to the opening of domestic market, and Yugoslavia were beneficial greatly from international division of labor at the end of 1960's and the beginning of 1970's. Cheap raw materials stroke down the raw materials industries in Yugoslavia and stimulated the processing industries developed blindly, which made Yugoslavia suffered a lot from the unfavorable balance of payments under the assail of petroleum crisis in mid-and-end of 1970's. Fuel and raw materials which needed to develop economy accounted for 60%-70% of gross import goods, while the twice petroleum crisis in 1970's led to price soaring of the fuel and other raw materials. At the same time, export of Yugoslavia collapsed because of protectionism and economy recession of western countries. Therefore, its external debt increased at a speed of 2 billion dollars per year and foreign exchange reserves declined dramatically, which caused lack of foreign exchanges to import raw materials, as well as further effect on reproduction. As a result, two thirds of the enterprises shut down for lack of raw materials. All these led to the stagnation and recession of production. Its growth rate of social output value was 6.1% in 1970's, 2.4% in 1980, 2% in 1981, zero in 1982, and a decline of 1.3% in 1983.
Autonomous rights owned by the enterprises, one of the conditions for Yugoslavia accession to the GATT made the government lack of effective administrative measures to adjust and control domestic enterprises, leaving the import and export trades of enterprises were out of control. Under the social autonomous system, demands for investment and equipments were enlarged blindly, mass import of technology and equipments worsened the balance of payment crisis, directly causing inflation of gross demand, which worsened the existing inflation. The government transferred the power of borrowing foreign debts to enterprises, which turned the possibilitysintosreality. Yugoslavia failed to meet the challenges of GATT since its reform of social autonomous enterprise system with intrinsic drawbacks didn't go in depth before accession to the GATT, sogoslavia provided uYuseful experiences for China's accession to the GATT. Firstly, we had to carry out reforms from interior system before implementing trade liberalization, and make our best efforts to develop Chinese enterprises really applicable for market economy. Secondly, on the basis of international division of labor, we had to establish relatively independent national economic system to reduce the impact of fluctuations in international market on domestic market. At last, we had to own versatile trade partners to avoid depending too much upon a certain country, so as to reduce influences to economy causing by political issues.
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