Tae deterioration in the terms of trade for primary producing count ries was making planning of sconomic development impossible according to Dr, Raul Prebisch, the former Ixecutive Secretary of the U.N, iiconomic Commission for Latin imerica,. He was speaking at the Ministerial session of the Inter- American Economic and Social Council's conferonce in Sac Faalo on November 14th, The terms of trade have deteriorated steadily since the end of the boom follow ing the cutbreak of the Korean war, Thero has been a contimious tendency for the price of primary products to fall, and those of manufactured goods to rise. This leads to the position where tho primary producers have to export more. and more to buy less and less, The superior economic position of the advanced industrial countries and such institutions as the Common Market onables these countries to enforce unfavourable trade agrcements om the primary producers,
Latin America would never achieve even the modest target of a per capita annual economic growth of 24% recommmended at the Punta del Este Conference of 1961, let alone the 5% growth rate consiaered desirable by the United Nations if there wero no revision of world trade and economic policies, (The natural population growth in Lafin America is estimated to be 2% per annum, therefore any growth rate less than that would mean a continuous tendency for the standard — of living to fall)
Dr, Prebisch, who is the Secrotary-Goneral of the U.N. Trade and Development Conference that starts in Geneva next liarch, said that developed countr— ies! policies towards the underdeveloped world had to be changed. He endorsed the proposal of a previous speaker, Presidont Joao Goulart of Brazil, that a common Latin \merican trade policy be worked out for the Geneva talks,
In his speech Sr, Goulart had pointed out that the terms of trade had turned disastrously against the primary producers, causing inflation and serious payments imbalances and forcing them to have recourse to loans and debt settlements on unfavourable terms. It was essential, he said, to forge a new system of world trade, with a method of just and remunerativo prices for raw material exporta and an end to obstacles and discriminatory practices imposed by the developed countries on the free movement of primary products.