UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body. It is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and development issues. UNCTAD grew from the view that existing institutions like GATT (now replaced by the WTO), the IMF , and World Bank were not properly organized to handle the particular problems of developing countries. UNCTAD has 193 members.

The Conference has its permanent secretariat in Geneva.

One of the principal achievements of UNCTAD has been to conceive and implement the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for developing countries.

UNCTAD produces a number of topical reports, including:

• The Trade and Development Report [4]
• The Trade and Environment Review [5]
• The World Investment Report [6]
• The Economic Development in Africa Report [7]
• The Least Developed Countries Report [8]
• UNCTAD Statistics [9]
• The Information Economy Report [10]
• The Review of Maritime Transport [11]
• The International Accounting and Reporting Issues Annual Review [12]