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DRAFT STATEMENT
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The Government have now completed their examination
of the Textile Council's Report on Cotton and Allied
Textiles.
2. The Report addressed a number of recommendations
to both the Government and the industry, and these have
been the subject of continuing consultations with the
Council.
3. The recommendations to the industry concentrated in
particular on the need to increase the rate of re-equipment,
extend multi-shift working, and develop closer technical
and commercial links between the different stages of
production and marketing. I attach the greatest importance
to these three requirements and am working closely with
the Textile Council on their implementation.
4.
The main recommendations to the Government concerned
future policy on imports and financial assistance to
encourage re-equipment.
5. On import policy, the Council recommended that the
present quota system should be replaced by a tariff on
imports of cotton textiles from the
Commonwealth preference
area at a rate not less than 85% of the most-fav ured-
n ation duties. On cotton cloth, the main item of trade,
this would mean a duty of 15%. The Council believe that a
tariff would be a better solution both for the industry
and the country than a continuation of quotas. It
would offer a margin of protection that was both stable
and predictable, so enabling the industry to plan
ahead with confidence.
Quotas, on the other hand,
were likely to prove even less effective in the future
/ than
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