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SAVING TELEGRAM
1
No. 47 Saving
28 May 1971
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Addressed to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, telegram No. 47 Saving of 28 May 1971
Repeated for information to:
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REECHWEDDIN RUGHTY No. 51.
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JUL1771
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My telegram No. 375 (not to all): GATT WAIVER FOR THE GENERALISED SYSTEM OF FREFERENCES
1 The GATT Council met on 25 May to discuss the draft waiver submitted by the Donor countries. Reed (Norway) on behalf of the donor countries introduced the waiver text, making the statement contained in the annex to this saving telegram.
2 The developing countries then spoke for the rest of the morning session. They were divided between those who could support the draft waiver in the form submitted and those who could not. The arguments used by the former (which were clearly attuned more to the needs of those developing countries within the Group of 77 who had doubts about the draft than to other developing countries) were along the following lines:
(a) GATT's role in granting a waiver was a purely legal
function:
(b) It was UNCTAD's job to discuss the substance of the
GSP;
(c)
(a)
Most aspects of the GSP had been fully worked out in the UNCTAD and should not be reopened in the GATT;
Such few aspects of the GSP as had not been satisfactorily worked out in the UNCTAD should be left to the latter body to resolve within the "dynamic context" of continuing work on preferences for developing countries;
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