TNAG-0135-FCO40-171-Tariff-preferences-for-developing-countries-1969 — Page 196

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5-8 of the U.K. statistical classification) were worth $262m.

It would, therefore, appear sensible to select a number of

sensitive items on which duty quotas would be enforced and to

allow other preferential imports from the beneficiaries to enter

without control and without any special statistical monitoring.

A list of U.K. sensitive items would have to be compiled and

be comparable in the number of items and the coverage in trade

with the EEC's list, assuming that the EECS list becomes publicly

available. As long as the general coverage and totals of trade

were roughly comparable, there would be no need for the lists

to contain identical products; it is unlikely that all the items

we might regard as sensitive from non-Commonwealth developing

countries would be identical with the EEC's list. Assuming, then,

that in practice duty quotas will be enforced on only a restricted number of tariff headings (the tentative list proposed

by the EEC Commission - which is likely to be their minimum

requirements and will probably be greatly expanded

abuse.

contains

18 separate tariff headings), we must decide whether to administer

the control by means of import licences up to the amount of the

annual quota or alternatively by allowing imports freely until

the quotas are filled and then imposing the full rate of duty.

Any system of import licencing is expensive in administration

irritating for traders and likely to cause difficulties and

On the other hand, it enables the volume of imports to

be controlled precisely; adopting the other technique would have

the consequence that developing exporters of a competitive

product would not be able to know before shipping their goods

whether they would be liable for duty on arrival at a U.K.Port

or would be admitted duty free. There would clearly be plenty

of scope for disagreement about liability for duty and for

friction with beneficiary countries about the way in which the

quotas were administered. Arrangements would also have to be

made for a continuous scrutiny of imports of the sensitive items

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