WORKING PARTY ON TEXTILE POLICY
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The first meeting of the Working Party took place under Mr Ridley's chair- manship on Monday, 25 October. Those present wore kiss Lackey (CRE2), Kiss Elliott (CRE), Miss Love and Misa Welch (CT), Mr Brearley and Mr Whaley (Tariff), Mr Herzig (CRE2), Mr Wolla (EOS) and k Formall (CT) with Miss Waltors (CT) noting
as rapporteur,
TIMETABLE
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The Parliamentary debate on the introduction of the new tariff on CPA cotton textiles is scheduled for mid-Novembor, likely dates being 16 or possibly 23 Hoverbor, It was agreed that the draft submission for the Minister for Industry should be ready by 8 November and finalised within the following two days. The basio preparatory work, would therefore need to be considered at next Wednesday's meeting on 3 November at 10.15 a.m. (papers to be circulated by Tuesday, 2 November).
PAPERS ALREADY IN PREPARATION
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(a) Proliminary analysis of the four Asian agreements with the US (already circulated). Miss Lowe drew the meeting's attention to the severity of tho outbacks on mmf (30%) and wool (5%), comparing the now quota levels with exports from Hong Kong in the year ending 30 September 1971.
(b) EcS paper on UK industry - 1971 Market Analysis:
This would attempt to examine the effect on demand and consumption in particular sectors of the industry (e.g. shirts) of rising imports. If possible a comparison would be drawn between wholesale price movements of domestically- produced goods in the UK and the EEC under the respective duty-free quota systems, although it was acknowledged that detailed statistics for the EEC market might be unavailable. Miss Welch mentioned that movement in prices of raw cotton and man-made fibres would be relevant here.
(o) CT paper on EEC's current Article 4, etc., agreements to which the UK
may have to align
This would be circulated as soon as possible. Miss Lackey warned that by 1973 there could be more than the 7 agreements recently negotiated by the Commission, and we should need to attempt a forecast of additional possibilities in this field.
(a) CRE paper on safeguards and commercial relations considerations
Miss Elliott agreed to co-ordinate this paper in co-operation with other CRE branches. It would cover the UK's multi-lateral obligations and safeguards under GATT, the LTA and EFTA, and the effect on commercial relations with Hong Kong, India, Pakistan, etc., if safeguards were invoked. (It was agreed that E Area polioy would be omitted from this exercise since the EEC still operated q.r. against most Communist Bloc countries.) The position of EFTA low-cost suppliers (Austria and Portugal) would be particularly important in the content of safeguards as over 4/5 of the 1971 increase in mmf imports had come from non-Asian sources.
4.
NEW OPTIONS TO BE ADDED TO THE LIST IN THE. SUBMISSION
(1) to consider with the EEC the possibility of jointly re-negotiating its