1
Izle
Please Poly The Financial Times Wednesday October 15 1969/16/10/6 U.S. takes firm line in textile agreements
BY HUGH O'NEILL
THE U.S. Government, it is was no break-down in these pre- understood, has not revived its liminary discussions as indicated proposal to extend the GATT in some reports. cotton textile agreements (CTA) to wool and man-made fibres, when the 30 nation GATT cotton textile committee met in Geneva last week.
But it did take a firm line against proposals to relax some of the restrictions under the existing ICTA which expire next September,
On the subject of man-made fibres and wool the U.S. officials went to considerable lengths to ex- plain their problems but indicated that they hoped to reach a solution through bilateral agreements, such as the one now under discussion with Japan.
The Geneva talks produced a frank exchange of views on some of the less satisfactory Picments of the CTA-also con- fusingly known as the Long Term Arrangements (LTA)-but there
The next meeting, when propo- sals on the extension of the CTA in their existing or in amended form will be discussed by the committee, is to be held as planned in mid-December.
One of the main problems raised at Geneva last week was. the position of those countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malta which have become significant producers of cotton textiles since the CTA quotas were established, using a historical trade basis. This has restricted the bulk of trade in cotton textiles to certain channels.
Most countries expressed the view that the CTA should be made more flexible, and that more con- trol of the quotas should be transferred from The exporting" countries"
>
(294)
The Board of Trade is par ticularly interested in seeing that other developed countries adopt a more liberal attitude so that when the U.K. moves over to tarifl's in 1972, in place of its present quota system, it does not become the immediate target for these new- comers."
*
Although there was general agreement that the CTA have not worked as well as had been hoped, it was also apparent that it is going to be very difficult to reach agreement on any significant changes.
If the CTA are extended in their present form however. more countries are likely to take advant- age of the CTA clause which enables them to negotiate mutually satisfactory hi-lateral agreements. This is going to make little sense of what is intended to be a multi- lateral trading arrangement.
-
PARL
RICKS
20001
никорочн