TEXTILES
UK statement for GSP meeting on 12 September
Appendix B
At its last meeting in July the Working Group agreed that further work was required by the three acceding states in conjunction with the Commission and that all delegations would do their best to adopt at our meeting today firm positions towards the Commissions working document.
The UK has given full consideration to the proposals that have been made about our involvement from 1 January 1974 in the arrangements for generalised preferences for cotton textiles and substitute products and we remain concerned to do all we can to co-operate constructively and to respect the Community's timetable for the approval of the necessary regulations.
But we have to say again that the proposals present serious difficulties for us. We recognise our obligation to conform to the Community's GSP, but regard it as inequitable and unreasonable to be expected to do so while we are bearing a wholly disproportionate share of the low-cost textile import burden and where as yet the Community at large is doing nothing about the internal market.
We have talked here and elsewhere on many occasions about this UK share of the total Community burden. A few figures will illustrate our concern. For 1973, the total quota provision made by the nine member states of the Community for imports of cotton textiles from eight supplying countries ie India, Pakistan, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Egypt and Yugoslavia is of the order of 172,000 tons. Of this, the United Kingdom provides for no less than 98,000 tons; a formidable 56 per cent of the total Community burden is borne by the UK. And in addition to this, and unlike most other members of the Community, we have from these same cight supplying countries, substantial imports of some cotton goods free of quota restriction. The introduction of tariff preferences for textiles
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