7 The way those principles work in practice is best shown by looking at each product category in turn:
Category 1 This covers the eight most sensitive products for which the Community intends to set an overall ceiling on the aggregate of low-cost imports. These 8 products accounted for about 68% of total UK low-cost imports by weight in 1975.
Category 2 This covers all the other sensitive products. As a rule the Community will seek restraints on all low-cost suppliers with more than 1 - 1.5% of EEC imports. Quotas will also be sought for individual Member States where a supplier is not disruptive at Community level. And for products which are especially sensitive in one Kerber State the Community will seek restraints on any supplier which takes a much lower share of imports in the Member State concerned (this could be less than 0.5% in some cases).
The effect of this is that initial restraint coverage for the UK would be over 90% for the more sensitive products and in séveral cases as high as 98 - 99%.
J
Products not immediately under restraint would be subject to basket arrangements, ie the EIX is seeking a provision in the agreements which would make it clear that the EBC had the right to insist that particular products were taken out of the basket and subject to restraint if any of the suppliers not initially restrained subsequently either reached 1.5% of EC imports or increased by 30 in a year to reach 0.5% of total EC imports. Again the intention is to secure provisions for operating this procedure at regional level where increased imports are concentrated in a particular Member State.
Products in Category Zaccounted for about 18% of total UK low-cost imports by weight in 1976.
Category 3: other textile products
Category 4: other clothing products
For these products the EDC is seeking substantially more quotas than under the present MFA.
In general, however, quota coverage for these two categories will not be as comprehensive as for categories 1 and 2. As a rule the EEC is seeking restraints on any supplier with 5% or more of total EEC imports of each product in these two Categories. Other suppliers will be subject to basket arrangements. Again the EEC will seek provision for particular products to be taken out of the basket and subject to restraint if any of the suppliers not subject to immediate restraints reaches a particular level.
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