The report by the UNCTAD Secretariat, submitted to the third
session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development held
in Santiago (Chile) in April 1972, deals with the restrictive business
practices of the multinational corporations with special reference to
the export interests of the developing countries. Since the world war,
there has been a tremendous growth in the size and activities of many
international firms. They have grown from the national corporation to
the multidivisional corporation and now to the multinational
corporation. With each step they acquired greater financial power,
better technology and know-how and more complex administrative
structures. They have subsidiaries and branches all over the world. In
the course of the sixties they became one of the dominant factors in
determining the pattern of world trade. At the same time, their
increasingly restrictive business practices, which tended to adversely
affect world trade and the export interest of less developed countries,
attracted the attention of the governments both in developed and less
developed countries and serious concern was shown at the international
level. It is against this background that the UNCTAD undertook the study
on the question of restrictive business practices.
