FREE TRADING IN EUROPE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28399, 4 October 1957, Page 13

FREE TRADING IN EUROPE

Safeguards For U.K. Urged

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 3. Britan's industrialists and businessmen have laid down in a report to the Government the safeguards they would like to see if Britain is to be in the European free trade area. The most important recommendations are that Imperial preference must be kept and foodstuffs excluded. The report issued by the Federation of British Industries, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the National Union of Manufacturers lists three basic requirements. That the proposed free trade area, if Britain is to enter it, should be compatible with the maintenance of the existing structure of Imperial preference, which should not be jeopardised. The British Government’s declared policy not to surrender Britain’s right to maintain its own tariff policy visavis the outside world and not to join in common external tariffs with the European Economic Community is supported The view is expressed that food, feeding stuffs, drink and tobacco should pot be included The report also urges the Government to agree to provide financial aid to “hard hit" industries, possibly by establishing a “reconversion board” which would grant loans to enable small firms to convert and adapt themselves to new fields of manufacture. The three organisations maintain that even after all safeguards and allowances have been made “there will remain some industries and firms at present receiving protection from tariffs which simply cannot be considered as viable under European free trade area conditions, however efficient they may be." The report also says there should be rules in the free trade area prohibiting dumping and forbidding all forms of Government export subsidies.