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and that we see no reason to inour the odium of the 'old'
Commonwealth by not giving them adequate time for consultations.
I understand from MAFF, incidentally, that the revised offer
is to be made on the same basis se our original offer 1.0.
duty-free entry plus a 50% tariff reduction on certain items.
11. The time for consultations with Commonwealth lde's will be
immediately after the conclusion of the OECD discussions and
well before discussions in UNCTAD begin
Beneficiary Countri
12.
The PCO paper does not come out with a clear line. I
recommend that we should stick to the principle of self-
election as long as possible in the hope that Hong Kong will be
included in the preferonce sehene and urge other donors to
accept this principle. It is clear, however, that many donors
will wish to reserve the right to exclude one country or
another on economic or political grounds, and I can think of
no obvious counter move which we can make by way of
retaliation in the event of the exclusion of Hong Kong.
should however have a 'fall back' position in the event of
Hong Kong's exclusion and put forward the proposition that
some sert of special arrangement should be made for lleng Kong.
The latter are aware of this possibility and have already
tabulated their preferences. In descending order of
undesirability the possibilities appear to be :-
a) exclusion by country;
(b) exclusion by country by product in initial
exceptions list as well as safeguard prosedures;
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