10. The dominant suppliers are mostly under control, though often at very high levels, in the UK through quotas established under the existing MFA. The operation of the Community's "burden sharing formula" allows Member States who have historically large imports from traditional suppliers to take only a small proportion of the annual growth in quotas, which the Community is obliged to give these suppliers under the existing MFA. For example, the UK has firm quotas on imports of sensitive products from Hong Kong and is giving only 1% annual growth on some items as opposed to the normal MFA growth of at least 6% Despite this, overall import penetration from low-cost sources has continued to rise markedly during
the lifetime of the present MFA.
11. The British industry needs control on the overall total of imports of sensitive products from all low-cost suppliers. Only in this way can the argument be countered that each new supplier is insignificant in itself and should therefore not be controlled. The total of such "penny-packets" has caused cumulative market disruption. And only in this way can the
problem of the cumbersome procedures of the present MFA be overcome, because such a control would be operated against all low-cost suppliers of certain sensitive products by means of one measure rather than a series of bilateral negotiations. This would be the nature of the "globalisation" clause for
which the UK has argued in the new MFA.
/The position in the Community so far
CONFIDENTIAL