TNAG-0132-FCO40-168-Tariff-preferences-for-developing-countries-1969 — Page 104

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Consultation with the Commonwealth

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5. As regards developed Commonwealth countries, Mr. Kemmis accepted that if such countries objected to the inclusion in our lists of items on which they had contractual preferences, these would have to be withdrawn. As regards developing Commonwealth countries, their main concern would be the question of adequate compensation in other markets, and the only country with contractual preferences was India. draft PCO paper would propose that Commonwealth countries generally should be informed of what we proposed to do before the 1 March, though the timetable might allow only a little notice before this date. Their views would be invited and those Commonwealth countries associated with the OECD Ad Hoc Working Group would be offered consultations in Paris. When

I pressed Mr. Kemmis as to whether Commonwealth countries would be given copies of our offer list, he was at first hesitant in view of the agreement in OECD that the lists should remain strictly confidential. In the end, however, he accepted that proper consultation could not take place without such lists being handed over. He envisaged our being given the lists to send to our posts in Commonwealth countries in advance of the communication telling them how they could use the lists; and I agreed that posts would have to be instructed to impress on governments that our lists should not be communicated to other parties. I drew Mr. Kemmis' attention to the circular saving despatch to dependent territories of 29 May 1968 which contained an undertaking in terms that our draft list would be sent to Colonial Governments. Mr. Kemmis was not aware of this saving despatch; we agreed that the same consultation should take place with dependent and independent territories before 1 March, which would carry out this undertaking.

6. We next discussed the passage in paragraph 45 of the communique of the recent Commonwealth Prime Ministers' meeting which provided that close and continuous consultations should take place amongst Commonwealth countries "during the consideration of the scheme of generalised preferences". The Board of Trade had evidently given no thought to the way in which this undertaking would be carried out, We agreed that there were three stages - the first being the period before 1 March, the second the period of the negotiations in OECD from 1 March to say the end of June, and the third the negotiations in UNCTAD after the end of June. The first stage was covered by the action proposed in paragraph 5 above. The second stage was more difficult and Mr. Kenmis questioned the practicability of having consultations with Commonwealth countries during a difficult and involved international negotiation in Paris. I suggested that there was no need to bind ourselves at present to any fixed procedure, but that, in the light of events at the time, we might consider informing or consulting Commonwealth countries about the position reached in OECD about the end of the

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CONFIDENTIAL