-3-
Rumania's and Bulgaria's claims are based on equality of treatment
with other countries at a comparable stage of development; that
is they are not claiming that they are as deserving as Africa or
Asia. The remaining four countries are not members of any grouping
in UNCTAD. Also listed are the dependent territories for which a
similar claim has been made by their protecting power. Annex B
summarises the trade from each of the main groups of developing
countries for the same categories of goods covered in Annex A.
The United Kingdom's Position
7
We have always pursued two main objectives:
(i)
the adoption by all the donors of broadly similar lists
of beneficiaries;
(ii)
the inclusion by the others of Portugal and Hong Kong,
to which we already give duty free entry.
:
8
As regards (i), we have emphasised that the question of beneficiar-
ies cannot be separated from the concept of burden-sharing, which
all the donors have endorsed. We have always supported the
recommendations of the Report of the Croup of Four senior officials
on trade with developing countries (in which we took a leading part)
that there was no citerion of economic development which would be
both an
objective test and politically acceptable to all the
countries concerned, and that therefore the most equitable and least
unsatisfactory solution should be the "self-election" of beneficiaries.
36.