Cocom Delays Rule Change

Reuters

Published: February 27, 1991

PARIS, Feb. 26—
Cocom, the Western trade body that oversees high-technology exports to the former Eastern bloc nations, postponed a high-level meeting this week that was expected to loosen restrictions, trade officials said today.

"The high-level meeting has been deferred because there are a number of technical points still to be resolved," said the official, who is close to the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls.

Instead, Cocom officials will use the session, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, to report on what still needs to be done to put the revisions into effect, the official said. Trade officials could not say when the high-level meeting would take place.

Since 1949, Cocom has restricted exports of high-technology goods with military uses to Communist governments. Last June, it agreed to cut the list of controlled items by a third and to establish a well-defined list of products that could not be exported without a license.

The decision came after reforms in Eastern Europe, and United States officials said at the time that the change should help the new democracies and market economies of the region. But earlier this month trade officials said there had been difficulties in setting up technical specifications.

Cocom, representing all NATO members except Iceland, plus Australia and Japan, has operated a complex system intended to scrutinize all technology exports. The core list would define forbidden items and allow all other products to be traded freely.