Catalogue description Records of the Imperial Economic Committee and Commonwealth Economic Committee

The Imperial Economic Conference of October 1923 recommended the establishment of a body whose function would be to examine the possibility of improving methods of preparing for marketing, and marketing, of overseas Empire foodstuffs and to make recommendations for a scheme to improve British consumption of Empire foodstuffs. These activities were to be funded from an annual grant of £1 million, to be provided by the United Kingdom government. As a result of this recommendation, the Imperial Economic Committee (IEC) was established in March 1925.

The original members of the IEC were the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia, and there was a member representing the colonies and protectorates. As a result of the initial work of the IEC, the Empire Marketing Board was set up in 1926. The Imperial Conference of that same year expanded the IEC's remit to include not just foodstuffs but also raw materials and general empire trade questions. It undertook investigations into imperial trade in various commodities, and reported to the various governments on ways to improve trading conditions.

Following the introduction of the Commonwealth Tariff Preference (the Ottawa Agreement) in 1933, the Empire Marketing Board was dissolved, and a number of the Board's staff and functions transferred to the IEC at this point. It was at this stage that principles for the management and membership of the IEC were laid down. During the Second World War, the work of the IEC was suspended. Most of the IEC's staff joined the armed forces or were loaned to various United Kingdom government departments, though the IEC itself remained in being and member states paid 10% of their normal contributions to enable work to be carried out on a 'care and maintenance' basis.

The work of the IEC restarted in 1947, when it was renamed the Commonwealth Economic Committee (CEC). For the next twenty years the CEC continued in its work of publishing regular intelligence summaries, undertaking and publishing economic and trade surveys, and generally promoting Commonwealth trade. The membership of the CEC increased with the size of the Commonwealth. The CEC was finally dissolved in December 1966 when its work and staff were absorbed into the newly created Commonwealth Secretariat.