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products on precisely the same footing as for manufactures and semi-manufactures, especially as the tariff alone, in most countries, is not the only relevant factor in the situation. There would also be difficulties in ensuring consistency with the burden-sharing principle. One member of the Group, mnetheless, considered that all products should be included in the arrangements. The majority of the Group believed that these considerations led to the conclusion that it would not prove feasible for any country grant special tariff treatment for processed agricultural products except as a result of case-by-case examination. Exceptions
18. The question. of exceptions is relevant both to the burden-sharing principle, first mentioned in, paragraph 6, and to the question of compensation for countries
Domestic manufacturers which already enjoy preferences in certain developed markets. of products already subject to significant competition from imports will not readily accept the removal or reduction of their protection against imports from developing countries if they know that their counterparts in other developed countries are not similarly placed. There is a danger, therefore, that each donor country may feel constrained to match, product by product, the exceptions insisted upon by the others. If this were to happen, the final exceptions list would include any product figuring in any one of the lists submitted by major donor countries, and could include a high proportion of the products in which the developing countries have a significant current trade interest, all the more so as their exports are concentrated on a relatively narrow range of goods.
19.
Countries enjoying existing tariff preferences also have a strong interest in exceptions. They might ask the donor countries in which they have such preferences to include in their exceptions lists items which appear on the exceptions
lists of others.
20. It would be desirable for the major prospective donor countries to consult each other when considering exceptions with the aim of keeping the final list as short as possible. Although it seems reasonable to assume that the products which are "sensitive" to import competition in one market are likely to be so in others, the Group see no reason why the list of individual doner countries need be identical. It is, however, necessary that the exceptions of the donor countries should reflect the principle of burden sharing.