On 30 October 1947, 23 countries signed the Final Act of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Devised as a temporary agreement that would boost international trade, the GATT regulated world trade for almost 50 years before being succeeded by the birth of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 01 January 1995.
To mark the signing of the GATT in 1947, a United Nations (UN) press release announced, that “There is no parallel to this achievement in any previous trade negotiations, all of which have been on a more limited scale. The completion of such a large number of simultaneous negotiations of such broad scope in a little over six months is in itself a remarkable feat.”