IMPORT DUTIES ON WOOL IN ANNECY TRADE AGREEMENT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 63, 14 November 1949, Page 5

IMPORT DUTIES ON WOOL IN ANNECY TRADE AGREEMENT

The Annecy trade agreements, upder which the benefits of the Geneva trade agreements are extended to ten more countries in return for tariff concessions on their part, have resulted in some of these countries effecting further modifications in their import duties on wool textilas. The countries concerned in the agreements are Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Finland, Greece, Haiti, Italy, Libaria, Nicaragua, Sweden and Uruguay, states the New Zealand Wool Board.

The agreements cover more than 600 pages of tariff changes, under "which Britain, U.S..A, Canada and other signatory countries to the original Geneva agreements extend concessions to the ten countries named above, while these ten countries outline the reductions they propose to make. Generally speaking, the reduced tariffs will not take effect until next year.

The interest of the wool and wool textile industries lies in the fact thgt several of the new signatory countries indicate their intention to reduce duties on imported wool textiles, and these various concessions pave the way for a freer flow of world trade in wool goods. There is no change in Wool and wool textile trade relationships between Britain and the U.S.A., or between the Dominions and the U.S.A., as these relationships were fixed by the Geneva Agreements and remain unaffected by these supplementary agreements with other countries. Among the countries which revise their wool textile import duties are Sweden, Denmark and Italy, all of whom rank as substantial importers of thes4 goods, 1 and Canada modifies her duties on imported wool yarn. Sweden reduces her maximum duty on imported wool cloth by 10 per cent.