TNAG-0134-FCO40-170-Tariff-preferences-for-developing-countries-1969 — Page 155

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that the werk on the that it was hoped to weeks.

Irish offer was nearly completed and table it in the next three or four It was also confirmed that Iceland would not be making any offer.

Preparation for the Second Session of the UNCTAD Committee

5.

9

This

It was clear from this round-up that, as a number of submission were not yet available including one very important one (the U.3.) it was not possible to begin the process of evaluation and comparison of the offers. immediately led on to the next item of the Agenda, namely, the effect of this lack of progress on the attitude to be adopted by the Group B countries at the Second Session of the UNCTAD Special Committee on Preferences beginning in Geneva on 28 April. The two main items on the agenda for that meeting would be

6.

(1) consideration of progress since the last session

(under which Group B would be expected to make a statement or statements), and

(11) the establishment of working roups on various

aspects of a generalised system of preferences to prepare for "intensive consultations" at the Third Session Af the Special Committee at the end of June.

The Group recognised that the immediate situation in the face f this meeting could not be other than a fairly gloomy one. The timetable was obviously slipping. Group B countries were faced with two commitments, namely, Resolution 21(II) of the New Delhi UNCTAD Conference and the timetable set ut at the end of the Report of the first meeting of the Special Committee. On any realistic assessment these commitments, particularly that intensive consultations with the developing countries should begin at the Third Session of the UNCTAD Committee at the end of June, could not be met. And the Group B countries would be hard put to it to report any substantive progress since the first meeting of the Committee, although it was true that intensive work had been going on behind the scenes in capitals.

7.

This led to a long discussion of the tactical position in UNCTAD in the course of which it was agreed that a joint statement would be drafted for delivery on behalf of Group B. I enclose the draft as prepared by the Secretariat. There was no time to consider this in detail and it will be finalised in Geneva at a Group B meeting during the first day of the UNCTAD Committee. Despite some initial dissent it was also finally agreed that it would be helpful if delegations backed this up with individual statements, although it was hoped that in essentials these would not go beyond the joint statement. It was also accepted that it would probably be preferable not to re-open at this stage in the UNCTAD the question of the timetable for future work as this would probably lead to further demands from the developing countries which would be equally hard to meet in

/practice

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