SWEDISH TEXTILE NODOTIATIONS
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POLICY 19SUES INVOLVED
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A.
Impact on U.K. industry
We have been told by the Industries Division of the Board of
Trade that any proliferation of restraints on non-cotton textiles
(and on knitwear in particular) will lead to renewed strong pressure
from sections of U.K. industry concerned for parallel restraints,
which Ministers are likely to find irresistible. Britain would have
to take part in a situation of "accelerating bilateralism" if its
own industry was not to be damaged by deflections of trade. This
would run counter to H.M.G.'a general policy and to its policy for
the textile industry in particular.
2. This warning has been sounded before by Industries Division.
But this is the first time that we have been put on notice by the
Board of Trade in these forthright terms. CRE Division backs
Industries Division to the extent of saying that if any section of
U.K. industry has as good a case as any conceded by Hong Kong to the
Swedes they would not stand in the way of U.K. calling on Hong Kong
for similar restraint.
B. "Creeping Bilaterism" and its significance in the context of
American Initiatives for an C.1. A. type arrangement covering non-cotton textiles.
3. Industries Division of the Board of Trade maintains that the
gradual proliferation of such restraints is inevitable if a stand
is not taken; that the Americans and others will make similar
restraint demands; and that this will lead inevitably to the
extension of the C.T.A. to non-cotton textiles as sought by the
Laaricans.
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