TNAG-0134-FCO40-170-Tariff-preferences-for-developing-countries-1969 — Page 33

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imports of cotton textiles from developing countries come from

outside the Commonwealth, and these are all controlled under

the existing quota arrangements. But the proposal by the

Board of Trade that from 1972 a tariff should be imposed on

Commonwealth cotton textiles and all the cxisting quotas on

developing countries removed, currently under consideration by

Ministers, has to be taken into account. The only practical

course open to us appears to be to except cotton textiles al- together (as in our 1st March submission) and to argue that this

is not wholly incompatible with alignment with the EEC, since

we should be aligning our tariffs with the CET on all our imports,

and that, although the proportion of U.K. consumption taken by

imports from developing countries is already much higher than

the EEC's or USA's, we expect that the combined effect of the

tariff and abolition of the quotas will not be harmful to

developing countries as a whole. On non-cotton textiles, the

position is complicated by the existence of a Commonwealth

rate of duty of 85 per cent of the full rate charged on textiles

of silk or man-made fibres. For reasons of substitutibility

with cotton textiles as well as the competitiveness of low-cost

knitwear and garments, the U.K. textiles industry, despite its

strength and the volume of its exports, attaches considerable

importance to the tariff against Commonwealth man-made fibres.

It would therefore oppose the removal of the tariff against both Commonwealth and other developing countries, even if limited

by duty quotas. But if the EEC are prepared to include these

goods in their duty quotas it is difficult to see how we can rofuse to do so. Much will depend on what offers the USA and

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