RESTRICTED
SAVING TELEGRAM
BY BAG
UKDEL C.E.C.D. TO FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
8 September, 1969
TELNO. 50 Saving
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY N51
12 SEP 1969
Mr. Murray
K.271
тата
RESTRICTED
NEUTRAL
11/16/12
We need to reguler
12.
The 2019
Addressed to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Telegram No. 50 Saving of 8 September 1969 repeated for information to UKDEL EEC., UKMIS Geneva (for Goldsmith and Jones) Washington, and Tokyo.
The O.E.C.D. Ad Hoc Group on Preferences for developing countries met from 3-5 September. Wintermans (Netherlands) was in the chair. Morris (Board of Trade) represented the U.K.
Examination of Further Illustrative Lists
(a) United States
were
Leary (State Department) added little of substance to the United States illustrative list. Recommendations expected to be made shortly to the President following the completion of the inter-departmental policy review, though he could not indicate a time-table. The U.S. did not necessarily favour the competitive need approach set out in their list but had put it forward for discussion believing it had advantages, e.g. it was non-discriminatory and preferable to the cutright exclusion of commodities or countries. Under the competitive need formula, however, once a developing country had secured 10 per cent or more of United States imports of any product sund the withdrawal of the preference, 20 syliul to that country,
/stop was to be permanent. They were not sure if a fixed base
year would be adopted for the calculations of imports or whether the base would be rolled forward. Other points made by Leary were that the U.S. would find it difficult to be more procisc on the definition of "sensitive categorics" from the broad groups set out in their illustrative list both for "constitu- tional" considerations and the need to have a clearer idea of the eventual outline of
/the preferences scheme: nor were they decided on how eventually
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/to treat