0003160 G.F. 316
SECRET
ANNEX A TO XCS(73)9
Message from Chancellor of the Exchequer
dated 6th September 1973
When I wrote to you and other signatories of the sterling agreements in July the international monetary situation gave us a particularly uncertain background against which to take firm decisions about the sterling agreements covering a substantial period ahead.
I was not therefore able to propose what our arrangements in the longer term should be, but I promised to write to you again about arrangements to cover the official sterling balances in the period immediately ahead.
2.
We have all been able to consider the position further since then, but we still face a period of continuing uncertainty in international monetary affairs. Against this prospect, I cannot see that it would be sensible for any of us to try to work out substantive arrangements for new sterling agreements to operate in circumstances of which we cannot feel sure. On the other hand, I am impressed, and I think you may share this view, by the value for all of us, amidst so many uncertainties, of the element of stability which the existing agreements have given.
3
I believe that we have a common interest in preserving this element of stability until we can see the way ahead more clearly. To preserve this stability I now give you an undertaking to maintain, after 24th September 1973 when the existing agreements expire, the US dollar value of eligible sterling balances at the average sterling/dollar rate in London at noon on 4, 5 and 6 September 1973 viz dollars 2.4213 equals pound sterling one. The guarantee will be set out formally in a declaration which will extend to participants in the present agreements which in fact maintain either the minimum sterling proportion laid down in those agreements or an absolute amount of sterling fixed along the lines of the so-called "limited MSP" scheme explained in the summer of last year.
SECRET
4. There/....
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.