By Bag
SIR JOHN CHADWICK
CONFIDENTIAL
SAVING TELEGRAM
Profaances.
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FROM UNITED KINGDOM DELEGATION TO 0.E.C.D. TO FOREIGN AND RECEIVED IN
COMMONWEALTH GARY No. 51
TELEGRAM NO.69 SAVING
CONFIDENTIAL NEUTRAL
DATE: 10 NOVEMBER 1969
Ad How froup in Prferansed
17 NOV 1969
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·OECD Trade Committee.
Addressed to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Telegram No. 69 Saving of 10 November, 1969 repeated for information to UKDEL E.E.C., Washington, Tokyo, UKMIS Geneva.
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Following from delegation to the Trade Committee of OECD.
The Committee met on 6-7 November with Herbst (F.R. of Germany) in the chair. Goldsmith and Kommis (Board of Trade) represented the U.K. The main subject on the Committee's agenda was again that of tariff preferences for l.d.c.'s. Discussion on the other agenda items is reported in I.F.S.T.
2, On preferences, the task of the Committee was to decide what could be transmitted to the UNCTAD by the agreed date of 15 November as "substantive documentation" on a preference scheme; based on the report (TC(69)10) by the Committee's Ad Hoc Group on Preferences. Inevitably discussion was much affect-
ed by the tabling of revised illustrative submissions by the United States and Japan: these are set out in full as Annexes A and B to this Saving Telegram. The revised United States submission followed on President Nixon's speech of 31 October (see Washington Telegrams 2990 and 2991 of 1 November) and had already been examined in some detail by the Ad Hoc Group on
5 November, when it drew up TC(69)10. The Americans said privately that they were surprised by the President's choice of preferences scheme and that it was not among the precise alternatives officials had put up to him. Clearly, they thought it was a good scheme and that it would be difficult... to steal thunder from it particularly on the part of the E.E.C..
in the UNCTAD.
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3.
The Japanese had been for some time considering a tariff quota scheme on the lines of that championed by the E.E.C. and also considered previously by the United States. The revised
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/United
CONFIDENTIAL