Emerging Trends in the International Trading and Financial System

Because of its duration and the intensity of the conflict, the Second World War was particularly destructive. The pre-war pattern of international trade, payments and specialization which had already collapsed in the 1930s was further fragmented, and the early post-war years witnessed the emergence of a number of groups (for example, the Sterling area in a more formal form, the Franc Zone, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Dollar area), based on both economic and political concerns. Notwithstanding this division in the world economy and the proliferation of exchange and other forms of trade controls, the need for less commercial restrictions at the global level was recognized even before the war ended.