ABSTRACT
The most important of international organizations include the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. The widest framework for an East-West dialogue on questions of world trade and international cooperation is undoubtedly offered by UNCTAD. The primarily Soviet demand of considerably widening UNCTAD into an international trade organisation which "might also assume responsibility for the complex of questions currently covered by GATT" seems, however, unrealistic. Therefore GATT's intention – given the difficulties in making international price comparisons – was to allow effective defensive measures to be taken against exports at dumping prices. When, in November 1981, Hungary surprised the world by applying for membership in the IMF, its external position was substantially more stable than that of Rumania or Poland.
