GATT ROUND MAY STOP GROWING TRADE PROBLEMS: U.S. A successful new GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) round is needed to halt growing bilateral trade problems between major trading partners, U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter said. Yeutter, in New Zealand for informal GATT ministerial talks, told Reuters bilateral trade disputes are increasing because the multilateral system is inefficient. "That is really a strong rationale why we need a new GATT round," he said. "The very existence of all these bilateral irritants clearly emphasises the need to develop multilateral solutions to some of these problems." The eighth GATT round of negotiations was launched at Punta del Este in Uruguay in September 1986. Agriculture and services were included in the negotiations for the first time. The growing debt burden of Latin American and African nations will also provide impetus for the GATT round to succeed, he said. "Clearly those countries need to develop their export endeavours and they need open markets for that to happen and that's the basic objective of the new GATT round." But he said the GATT round is a long term endeavour. It will not give any short term relief for debt ridden countries, but it will make a difference in 10 to 15 years. "It's a worthwhile activity from their standpoint because these debts are not going to go away in the next year or two," he said. "They ought to be very strongly supported in the GATT round as a mechanism for relieving their debt burdens or making possible debt amortisation in the future," he said.