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2
His
4. We were fortunate in having Ambassador Santa Cruz (Chile) as spokesman of the Group of 77 at this session. reply to the Group B statement was moderate and conciliatory in tone. He emphasised the positive nature of the statement of intention by the OECD countries while affirming the necessity of a final timetable that would not be changed yet again and of agreeing on working groups to start work immediately the appropriate time was reached. He added that the developing countries would require approximately 60 days for study and evaluation of OECD's proposals. The Group of 77 also made no individual country statements.
Final Report
5. The discussion was then quickly adjourned to a contact group to settle the content of the Committee's report to the 9th Trade and Development Board and the argument centred on the procedural arrangements. Virtually all the negotiation on behalf of the Group of 77 was undertaken by Santa Cruz and by Brillantes (Philippines) with the Chairman, Swaminathan (India) and the Secretary General putting their weight behind as flexible and informal arrangements as possible.
It was apparent that the developing countries were divided about the necessity for a further Plenary Session of the Committee in November and about the need for working groups; in the contact group they were anxious to avoid any arrangements that would require the unanimous support of all the members of the Group of 77 or gave any member country the opportunity of vetoing the arrangements.
6
We were concerned to avoid any commitments as to the number or terms of reference of working groups or to allow the Secretary General to set up groups before the documentation was finalised or an his own authority following informal consultations only with representatives in Geneva. We were also anxious to avoid being committed to provide within the timetable that had now been agreed the documentation in a form dictated by the developing countries. The result which was reached without too much difficulty was agreement on the following main points:
t
(i) The OECD would provide in November as much detailed
information on their proposals as would be available at that time:
(ii) The Secretary General would thereafter convene
working groups following informal consultations under the same procedure as before, but the spokesman of Group B stated in Plenary that this was on the understanding of Group B that the con- vening and terms of reference of working groups must have the agreement of the preference giving countries,
(iii) The fourth session of the Committee would be arranged
following consultations either in November if this were really necessary, but more probably considerably later in order to consider any aspects not appropriate for working groups:
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(dv)
v) The 9th