Bank for International Settlements

Abstract

The eighteenth annual report of the Bank for International Settlements, which reviewed the period from April 1, 1947, to March 31, 1948, called for abandonment of the wartime type of direct controls on prices, production and trade, and the restoration of a functioning price system, operating under well-controlled monetary regimes. The report, the most comprehensive ever issued by the Bank, dealt in detail with such topics as 1) recovery and set-back in 1947, 2) restoration of monetary order, 3) price movements, 4) the tense position of international trade, 5) foreign exchange rates, 6) production and movements of gold, 7) international credit conditions and the trend of interest rates, 8) European payment agreements, multilateral monetary compensation and the European Recovery Program, and 9) current activities of the Bank. Reference was made to the fact that the Bank for International Settlements had acceded to a request to act as technical agent for the Agreement on Multilateral Monetary Compensation, signed in Paris on November 18, 1947. Practical compensation operations under this agreement were begun in December 1947.