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As it
quotas would finally win the day and a feeling that the
Americans would swing round in favour of this system.
turned out they were proved completely wrong and were in
confusion when the American proposals were introduced at the
beginning of the meeting of the Ad Hoc Group. However, a
round trip to Tokyo and back by two of their delegation
produced a decision that they should nevertheless go ahead
with tabling their new proposals in the Trade Committee.
7. As far as Chapters 25 - 99 are concerned, the scheme bears
a very close resemblance to the EEC scheme (e.g. duty free entry
up to a ceiling comprising imports from beneficiaries in a base
year plus 5% of imports from other countries in the latest year
for which statistics are available. There is also a 50 per cent
of the quota cut off for imports of particular products from a
given beneficiary). But for certain selected products only a
50% tariff cut will be granted, although in these cases the
"additional amount" will be calculated at 10% of imports from
non-beneficiary countries. In some of these cases there will
be country by product exclusion when imports from a given
beneficiary exceed 50% of the ceiling in the latest year for
which statistics are available.
8. On beneficiaries the Japanese are ambiguous. In one
sentence they indicate that their submission is based on the
assumption that preferences be granted to members of UNCTAD
excluding Groups B and D and South Africa. But they also say
that Japan would "in general" base herself on the principle of
self-election. This led to pressure from the developing
countries in the OECD to withdraw the first sentence (of which
more below).
Meeting of the Ad Hoc Group
9. Apart from preliminary questions and answers on the U.S.
submission the Ad Hoc Group meeting was mainly taken up with
finalising its report to the Trade Committee, including the
draft submission to UNCTAD. The result emerged as TC(69)10.
/There was
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