TNAG-0142-FCO40-178-Long-term-policy-on-International-trade-in-textiles-1969 — Page 71

CONFIDENTIAL

I replied that this might be the theoretical deadline but

the practical one would be several months earlier as there

would otherwise be considerable danger of uncertainty and

disruption of trade. He also threw out the idea that it

might be possible for importing and exporting countries to

get together and agree on the broad lines of improvements

in bilateral arrangements which could be elaborated in

figures later. I replied that I did not think this would

work out in practice. It was only in the course of actual

detailed negotiations that arrangements acceptable to both

sides could be worked out; and neither importing nør

exporting countries would want to commit themselves too far in

advance

these.

9. Instead, I suggested that the best thing to do now in

preparation for the December meeting would be to speak to the

representatives of at least all the main importing and

exporting countries anu to draw together their ideas; this

might produce quite a bit of cross-fertilisation of views.

They said that they would naturally do this but that some

delegations did not necessarily have the knowledge to speak

with any authority, e.g., the Americans, whese main operators

in the CTC normally came from Washington. I replied that

there should really be no difficulty about this; the

Permanent Missions would just have to seek instructions from

their capitals. The same applied, for instance, to the

Japanese who could normally make no move without receiving

full instructions from Tokyo.

Non-Cottons

10. With regard to non-cottons Salib said he had heard that

the Americans now seemed to be mere willing to discuss their

problems within the general GATT context. I replied that we

had heard nothing about this; the U.S. still seemed to be

/wedded

CONFIDENTIAL