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to be less than satisfactory, but in the event all were prepared to accept it when it was presented by Long to the full Committee. Hungary, with Polish support, complained that it had not been adequately consulted, the State Trading countries were not properly represented, and it did not regard the selection of members as conforming with the requirements of the Textiles Arrangement, but did not try to hold up the proceedings. The Commission (Meynell) made a declaration for the record to the effect that the Community remained of the view that a genuinely balanced representation on the TSB could only be secured by an equal distribution of seats between countries principally concerned with problems of exports of textiles and countries whose principal concern was with problems of imports. The Comuni ty was prepared to acquiesce in the compromise because of the need for the TSB immediately to begin its important task and on the basis that there would be a review of membership arrangements before the end of this year. Korea supported by Hong Kong," Mexico and India pressed for alternates to be nominated for TSP members but Long was not prepared to press the Committee to make immediate decision on this.
5. Long announced that the TSB would be officially established as from 1 April and that its first meeting would be held on 23 April. On Long's proposal, the Committee agrood that Paul-Henri Vurth, currently Swiss Ambassador to the European Communities, should be appointed Chairman of the TSB for the period April 1974 to 31 December 1975. Wurth would be enrolled as a member of the GATT Secretariat for that period.
The Textile Committee's discussion of the statistics and documentation required for the operation of the Arrangement led to a decision to set up a specialist group, comprising both statisticians and textile policy representatives, to consider such questions as product classifications (if possible using the revised SITC for textiles and clothing), the preparation of statistics in common units, data frequency and reporting form, and the statistical needs of the TSB. This group will hold its first meeting in Geneva at 10 am on 30 April.;
7
Long proposed that notification of restraints, including those required under Article 2(2) of the Arrangement should comprise:-
a
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(e)
identification of products by BTN number;
nature of restraint (unilateral restriction, bilateral agreement, etc);
countries whose exports are restrained;
date of entry into force of restraints and terminal· date (if known);
quantities in volume and value terms.
Guatemala urged that the legislative or other powers used as a basis for applying restraints should also be specified. Reynell (Commission) questioned the relevance of this, expressed doubts about the necessity and practicability of reporting restraints both by volume and by value, and suggested that the specialist group should also consider technical questions of interpretation of the product coverage of the Arrangement as specified in Article 12.
an
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18.