CONFIDENT IA L
Chairmanship on the part of Wintermans.
The basic difficulty
was the fact that the United States Government had still not
made up their minds on what to do about preferences and that
the other prospective donor countries were therefore in no
position to know how they should tailor their own schemes in
the light of the burden-sharing principle. In point of fact,
therefore, the OECD countries were in no position at this stage
to formulate any "substantive documentation" for UNCTAD in a
common form that went much beyond their well trodden positiuns,
which are already familiar to the developing countries. This
position was exacerbated by the EEC's desire to make political
capital for themselves with the LDC's as the result of the
American predicament.
12.
It is possible that this position may be slightly
ameliorated at the next meeting of the Group, as President
Nixon is expected to make an important speech on U.S. policy
towards Latin America on 31 October, in the course of which he
may make some statement on generalised preferences. But it
seems unlikely that any U.S. "illustrative lists" with
relatively firm assumptions, conditions, etc. will be available
before 15 November, when the "substantive documentation" is
due to be presented to the UNCTAD.
13. This means that the developing countries will start to
have their say before the OECD line has been fully worked out,
which is not encouraging. Furthermore, the way things are
going it seems more and more likely that the end result of the
exercise will be a series of "Australian type" schemes, with
each country tailoring its particular scheme to fit its own
conceptions of "burden-sharing", in the light of the intentions
of other prospective donors. Fortunately perhaps for Hong Kong
this process seems likely to result in schemes emerging which
will be less favourable to the developing countries than were
the original illustrative offers.
/14.
CONFIDENTIAL
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