TNAG-0303-FCO40-339-Effects-of-tariffs-on-imports-of-cotton-textiles-to-UK-from--1971 — Page 130

CONFIDENTIAL

have been ignored, I hope that it will be possible at tomorrow morning's meeting with DTI for them to be pressed very hard to justify their proposition, parti- cularly in the light of the comment in their draft letter to the Chairman of the AE Committee that the Community's duty-free GPS textile quotas "will apply only to a small part of total trade". All the more reason, it seems to me, why we should soften the blow by proceeding now to put textiles into our UNCTAD offer a la EEC. We accept that careful calculation would be required of the size of any duty-free quotas in order to avoid alarming the EEC and accepting an unfair burden on the UK. But the complexity of the exercise is no argument for not proceeding with it.

24 November 1971

Copies to:-

EID (1)

HKD

FED

SAD

K FX Burns

Trade Policy Department

CONFIDENTIAL