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Draft Brief for U.K. Delegation to GATT Cotton
Textiles Committee
International Trade in Textiles
A. The This
سمية
The U.K. Delegation to the resumed Session of the GATT Cotton Textiles Committee, which will be meeting in Geneva on December 15th, should be guided by the following con- siderations:
Cotton Textiles
2. With regard to cotton textiles, it remains the position that we are content to see the Long Term Arrangement ter- minated provided we can continue with our quotas to the end of 1971. The result which might suit us best would be that the Agreement should be terminated in 3 years time, with some phasing out.
3.
There have been some proposals for specific amendment of the Agreement. In general, our attitude should be that, just as we are content to see the Agreement terminated by the end of 1971, so we would be happy to see its terms liberalised, XS Hong Kong would like to see Article 2 abolished, since they believe that the reference in para.1 to progressive relaxation of restrictions inconsistent with the GATT is irrelevant so long after the origins of the Agreement, and that the continuation of this Article provides in effect an escape clause for the maintenance of such hardcore restrictions (e.g. by France). But it does not seem likely that the abolition of Article 2 would affect
the French position, and it contains some useful liberal- ising provisions not covered elsewhere in the Agreement (e.g. in para 6. about temporary imports).
4. The Germans may make proposals for extensive liberalisation of the L.T.A. growth provisions, by suggesting a minimum of 20 per cent instead of the present 5 per cent. We have already told the Germans that we could not accept such growth provisions ourselves so long as we operate the Agreement in view of the scale of penetration of our market; but would welcome and support as far as possible in the
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