TRADE WITH E.E.C. Commonwealth conference

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32885, 7 April 1972, Page 9

TRADE WITH E.E.C. Commonwealth conference

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, April 6. Representatives of 30 Commonwealth countries will make a detailed examination in London today of their future trading relations with the enlarged European Common Market.

The two-day Commonwealth conference, which began yesterday, is dealing mainly with the problems of the 20 Commonwealth developing countries which have been invited to begin negotiations for association, or trade agreements, with the Community. This is the first time since Britain signed the treaty of accession to the E.E.C. that Commonwealth countries have held a detailed and substantive exchange of views. The conference is a key meeting in a series of Commonwealth consultations, possibly extending to the middle of next year; there may be a conference at Ministerial level towards the end of this year. The London conference is being presided over by the Commonwealth SecretaryGeneral (Mr Arnold Smith), who told the delegates yesterday that, because all the existing types of association with the Common Market had to be renegotiated before 1975, it was not possible to forecast precisely what the shape of the new arrangements would be. But, he said, they were likely to be markedly different from the present Yaounde Convention and the Arusha Agreement, which were essentially Euro-African arrangements between 18 French - speaking African countries, with a population of 76 million, and six West European countries with a population of 180 million. The new arrangements will involve economic relationships between 38 developing

countries, with a population of nearly 209 million, and 10 West European nations, constituting a single market of 260 million consumers.