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26. As regards tactics in UNCTAD Reed (Norway), in his
capacity as Chairman of Group B in the Special Committee on
Preferences, suggested that the developing countries should be
invited to put questions in writing on the submissions to OECD
countries. This would enable the latter to keep as much
solidarity as possible by submitting joint or co-ordinated
replies. It was agreed that, while this tactic should be tried,
it was unlikely to succeed for very long and that a fairly early
meeting of the UNCTAD Preferences Committee could hardly be
avoided. It was, however, agreed that at such a meeting Group B
countries should strongly resist the establishment of working
groups at this stage to examine all aspects of a preferences
scheme in detail. Further meetings of the Working Group on
Origin Rules could nevertheless be accepted. This was by no
means a detailed discussion on tactics and further consideration
of this matter will obviously depend on the developing countries'
reactions to the submissions.
Further work in OECD
27. No arrangements were made by the Committee for continuing the
work in OECD. But clearly a lot more work will be needed before
anything definitive can be agreed between the prospective donor
countries, including the evaluation of the U.S. and Japanese
schemes. There was some talk in the corridors, which appeared
to have been started by the Secretariat, that further progress
would be difficult in such a large body as the Ad Hoc Group and
that the next step should be for the major prospective donors
(the U.S., U.K., E.E.C., Japan and perhaps the Nordics as a group)
to get together privately to try to sort out their ideas.
well be that this idea will find favour although, so far as I
know, nothing was decided last week. If so, such a group would
probably be the best forum for a thorough airing of the crucial
question of beneficiaries, including, of course, the position of
Hong Kong.
It may
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