CONFIDENTIAL
2 -
to developing countries in 1965, is unlikely to contribute.
5. Immediately after 1 March, assuming that the deadline is met, the work of assessing and comparing the offers will start. The lists are to be treated as confidential until the OECD countries are agreed that they may be released to the developing countries. A standard format has been agreed for the offer lists so that the coverage of products as defined by tariff heading and by total imports in 1967 can be assessed. It is hoped that this presentation will enable the offers to be analysed and compared as easily as possible, but it remains to be seen whether they are sufficiently clear and detailed for this to be possible. In accordance with the "burden sharing" principle, donor countries will be able to withdraw part of the offers they table on 1 March if they consider that the more limited offers of other countries justify them in doing so.
UNCTAD Timetable
6. At the December 1968 meeting of the UNCTAD Special Committee on Preferences, a timetable was fixed which sets narrow limits to the period within which arrangements for a system of preferences must be prepared by the donor countries and discussed with the beneficiary countries. A further short session of the Special Committee will be held at the end of June, at which the detailed discussions should begin with the developing countries on the substance of the donor countries' proposals. The Special Committee on Preferences. will then have to make its report to the Ninth Session of the Trade and Development Board, which opens on 26 August. If these time limits are to be met, intensive preparatory work and discussion will be necessary among the prospective donor countries during the period March to June.
Where Countries Stand
7. The United States announced their conversion to the principle of granting preferences to developing countries in April 1967. They have undertaken to table an offer list by 1 March, but have stated that they may not be in a posi- tion to give precise details about product coverage or the extent of the preferences. This reflects both uncertainty about the attitude of the new Administration and disagree- ment within the agencies of government about the extent of the preferences to be offered. They have consistently refused to commit themselves to any specific working hypothesis on the basis of which preferences might be granted. We still do not know, for example, whether their "norm" will be duty free entry, a 50% tariff cut or something even more modest for those products which do not figure on their initial exceptions list. They are keen that there should be safeguards written into the scheme which would enable them to withdraw or limit preferences if the occasion for it should arise and they have always expressed scepticism about the virtues of the duty quota mechanism advocated by members of the EEC. The single aspect which the United States has consistently stressed (and with increasing stridency in recent months) has been the extreme unlikelihood that Congress could be induced to pass the necessary enabling legislation unless it were first agreed that preferences enjoyed by some developed countries in the markets of some developing countries should be phased out over a period of time. (FCO Guidance no. 20 of 27 January.)
CONFIDENTIAL
18. The