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98

CONFIDENTIAL

C.P. (55) 171

9th November, 1955

Printed for the Cabinet, November 1955

CABINET

Page 70

of olds

Copy No. 64

COLOMBO PLAN

NOTE BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

I circulate for the information of my colleagues a report by Lord Reading on the recent meeting at Singapore of the Consultative Committee of the Colombo Plan.

Foreign Office, S.W. 1.

7th November, 1955.

H. M.

ANNEX

COLOMBO PLAN: MEETING OF THE CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE,

OCTOBER 1955

The meeting of the Consultative Committee of the Colombo Plan was held this year at Singapore from 17th to 22nd October. It was again a successful conference. In spite of the fact that there were many newcomers amongst both Ministers and officials the usual atmosphere of cordiality and informality was fully retained.

2. The most important decision was to extend the life of the Plan from June 1957, the end of the six-year period originally fixed, until June 1961, with the reservation that the position should be re-examined at the 1959 meeting of the Consultative Committee with a view to considering whether it should be terminated in 1961 or further prolonged after that date.

3. A situation has never yet arisen in which it has become necessary to take a vote, and that admirable precedent was not broken this year.

4. Whatever criticisms may sometimes be read in the Press of the scope and scale of the Plan, the basic gratifying fact remains that the Asian members believe in it, are satisfied with its progress and only desire it to continue, anyhow for the time being, though they do not lose sight of their ultimate goal of economic self-sufficiency. A feature of this meeting was the entry on to the stage of the peaceful uses of atomic energy as a field in which donor countries were now prepared to help in respect of both capital and technical assistance. The United States offered in general terms to set up a reactor somewhere in the region for the benefit of the Asian member countries as a whole; the Canadians confirmed their gift of one to India; and the United Kingdom agreed to provide vacancies at Harwell for courses in the use of isotopes for medical and agricultural purposes. Though it will probably be some time before most of the countries concerned are

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