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imports of cotton textiles from developing countries come from
outside the Commonwealth, and these are all controlled under
the existing quota arrangements. But the proposal by the
Board of Trade that from 1972 a tariff should be imposed on
Commonwealth cotton textiles and all the cxisting quotas on
developing countries removed, currently under consideration by
Ministers, has to be taken into account. The only practical
course open to us appears to be to except cotton textiles al- together (as in our 1st March submission) and to argue that this
is not wholly incompatible with alignment with the EEC, since
we should be aligning our tariffs with the CET on all our imports,
and that, although the proportion of U.K. consumption taken by
imports from developing countries is already much higher than
the EEC's or USA's, we expect that the combined effect of the
tariff and abolition of the quotas will not be harmful to
developing countries as a whole. On non-cotton textiles, the
position is complicated by the existence of a Commonwealth
rate of duty of 85 per cent of the full rate charged on textiles
of silk or man-made fibres. For reasons of substitutibility
with cotton textiles as well as the competitiveness of low-cost
knitwear and garments, the U.K. textiles industry, despite its
strength and the volume of its exports, attaches considerable
importance to the tariff against Commonwealth man-made fibres.
It would therefore oppose the removal of the tariff against both Commonwealth and other developing countries, even if limited
by duty quotas. But if the EEC are prepared to include these
goods in their duty quotas it is difficult to see how we can rofuse to do so. Much will depend on what offers the USA and
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/Japon