The next report is the usual one each year with regard to the Community's Generalised Tariff Preferences Scheme. This is a scheme whereby the Community helps developing countries by granting tariff preferences on certain finished and semi-finished products originating in those countries. We are coming to the end of the first ten years of the scheme. This proposal deals with 1980. We believe new guidelines will be coming forward shortly for the decade to come. There are no real problem areas for us.
There is some improvement in Community access for certain agricultural goods, basically those that are Mediterranean in character. Such products include dried bananas, pineapples and palm oil. That will not affect us; in fact, it might help us. Some misgivings had been expressed by the Irish tobacco industry because there was a modification in the tariff arrangement but a compromise was agreed and this was acceptable to the industry.
There was some concern about textiles and the Multifibre Agreement. An interesting aspect was that the People's Republic of China applied for inclusion under this scheme. We were interested to note that they were classified as a less developed country. The Commission concluded that having regard to basic economic factors. We were worried that sensitive products, such as footwear, transistors and so on might qualify for preference but these are not involved. We were also worried about chipboard in view of the fact that this industry here is having some difficulties but we gather that exports from China will not arise.
