And under the GATT rules of international trade, the tax is refunded on goods leaving a country.
"What is the point in writing new GATT rules unless we enforce the ones we have?"
Despite the importance of services to the global economy, these transactions are not covered by GATT rules.
Under the older GATT rules, resolution of a trade dispute could take two or three years, a Japanese official said.
Japan feels the GATT rules offer it a better forum, since they give far less weight to trade imbalances by themselves.
The first was to come up with a new definition of unfair trade, largely by referring to GATT rules.
The second objective was to suggest that all countries deviated from the GATT rules to some extent.
GATT rules make it hard to levy a tax on the estimated value of the virgin materials incorporated in an import.
All this will have to be "put on the table" and reduced under the GATT rules.
I clearly stated that the present GATT rules do not allow us to keep a ban on imports of must.