HC Deb 02 March 1993 vol 220 cc100-1W
Mr. Oppenheim

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list all EC or United Kingdom trade barriers, including industry to industry quotas and anti-dumping duties, which affect exports from the Czech Republic or Slovakia to the United Kingdom and EC.

Mr. Needham

The United Kingdom does not maintain any national quantitative restrictions against the Czech and Slovak Republics. The Government are not aware of any inter-industry agreements which restrict trade with the United Kingdom or the EC.

In December 1991 the EC and Czechoslovakia signed an association agreement which establishes co-operation in a range of fields and, in particular, provides for the creation of a GATT-compatible free trade area within a maximum of 10 years—based on the principle of asymmetry in the dismantlement of trade barriers with the EC taking the lead. The trade provisions entered into force on 1 March 1992 under an interim agreement which abolished tariffs and quantitative restrictions on 50 per cent. of Czechoslovakian industrial exports to the EC and provided for the liberalisation of almost all tariffs and quantitative restrictions within the next four years. The interim agreement has since been extended until separate, new association agreements can be negotiated with the Czech Republic and Slovakia following the division of the federal republic.

The European Community maintains Community-wide restrictions on a number of textile and agricultural products from the Czech and Slovak republics and I will write to my hon. Friend with details of these.

The following anti-dumping measures are currently in place:

  1. 1. Artificial Corundum Price Undertaking
  2. 2. Flexamine Price Undertaking
  3. 3. Urea Volume Undertaking
  4. 4. Potassium Permanganate Variable duty linked to a mimium price of 2.20 ECU/kg
  5. 5. Seamless Steel Tubes 30.4 per cent. provisional anti-dumping duty

On 25 February the EC Industry Council agreed in principle that tariff quotas should be negotiated with east European countries on their exports up until 1995 of sensitive steel products to the Community. It is now for the Commission to make suitable proposals to member states; the Government are concerned that these should be as liberal and as short-term as posssible.