ABSTRACT
The international action required in the commodity sector needs to go beyond the approaches that have held sway since the post-war period—approaches whose basic elements were introduced in the Havana Charter. The essence of the integrated programme is that, in contrast to previous approaches, it aims at dealing with the problem of commodities in a comprehensive and systematic way. The establishment of a common fund would constitute a major improvement in the existing international institutional arrangements relating to primary commodity markets. Consequently, since direct indexation by market regulation cannot be expected to cover effectively more than a certain range of commodities, consideration needs to be given to complementary measures to achieve the indexation objective. The prices of synthetics, however, are themselves likely to be subject to upward pressures in conditions of inflation. The income transfer effects of indirect indexation on a commodity-by-commodity basis would be different from those of indirect indexation on a country-by-country basis.
