Deadline extended to next
week.
CODE 18-77
To Assistants: EED (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia)
NENAD (Egypt, Morocco)
SED (Malta, Portugal, Spain, Turkey) FED (China, Korea, Macao, Taiwan) HKD .
SEAD (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines,
Singapore)
SAD (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, Thailand)
SAMD (Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay) MCAD (Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico)
UND
ERD
ECONOMISTS
ECD, ODA
RENEWAL OF THE MULTI FIBRE ARRANGEMENT
1. The MFA, under which the Community's textiles and clothing (TC) agreements and voluntary restraint arrangements with the above countries are negotiated, expires in mid-1986. In advance of the negotiations for a successor regime the DTI commissioned an independent study by Professor Silberston which was published in December. This considered the effect of the MFA on the British TC industries and the rest of the economy, in relation to the UK's international commercial interests. DTI Ministers have taken no view as yet of the report's recommendations but are currently considering the Governments response and consulting widely. In the meantime DTI have produced the attached position paper which their Ministers are considering, as a basis for inter-departmental discussions by officials on the UK's approach to a successor regime; these discussions are expected shortly.
2.
(i)
In setting UK objectives (paragraph 3), the paper omits certain major considerations:
UK relations with developing countries, e.g. the aid versus trade argument and the effects of a successor regime on the LDCs;
•
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
the UK position in the EC, where some Member States are liberal, others very protectionist and we appear to lie somewhere in the middle of the pack;
the precise relationship between negotiations ́on MFA and preparations for a new GATT round of multilateral trade negotiations;
the US position on MFA renewal.
The attached draft letter to DTI proposes that the paper should be expanded to cover these omissions, before inter-departmental discussion commences. I should be grateful for any views or contributions from departments by close of play on Friday 15 February on either the DTI paper or our own letter. It is not our intention that the DTI paper should go into lengthy detail, but it would be especially helpful if departments could