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Japan make in this sector;
if they are minimal, and the ERC
withdraw part of their offers, we shall be justifica in doing
likewise.
Similarly on iron and steel, on which our original
offer is conditional and has one exception, we shall have to
see whether the USA and Japan will, like the EEC, offer profer-
ences. If Spain is excluded from the scheme, much of our
problem in this sector will disappear
25. The administration of duty quotas
No duty quotas exist in the U.K's rogine of protective devices for domestic or Commonwealth interest. If duty quotas
were adopted they could either be allocated in advance to importers by a form of licensing (as in the case of existing import quotas), or operated on a cut-off basis by reimposing
the full rate of duty for the remainder of the current year
as soon as imports reached the level of the quotas. The former
method would enable traders to know what duty would be payable
and would ensure that the quota was not exceeded. It would
however, be expensive to administer, add to the clerical burden
on importers and raise all the usual problems of allocating ·
licences. The latter method would therefore be preferable,
assuming a substantial number of quotas to be involved, although
it would create some uncertainty for importers and there would
be, no doubt, disputes.`about consignments that arrived very close
to the deadline. Some method of statistical watch would be
needed to get as early a notification as possible that imports
had reached the quota ceiling. The most straight-forward way
of using the existing statistical arrangements for this purpose
would be to prepare a special computer programme that woud
provide separate import figures for the goods and countries
/concerned