Export controls on a number of items in the electronics field are eased in the 1987 Export of Goods (Control)

Order published yesterday, (Tuesday 8 December).

Factiva Press Release Service

December 9, 1987

Among the items which no longer require an export licence to the Soviet bloc are:

some low-level personal computers.
audio recorders/players, analogue video recorders/players; digital video reproducers (digital video recorders, however, remain licenseable); certain analogue instrumentation magnetic recorders.
certain commercial and professional video cassettes, magnetic tape; floppy disks and disk packs;
certain hand-held communication systems, amplifiers and some transistors.

"The UK has worked hard for these changes which I welcome", commented Trade Minister, Alan Clark. "We have realised for some time the need to relax the controls in these wide reaching areas of technology. These measures should help to ease the burden on all exporters, from the small businessman to the large corporations."

Controls have also been introduced or extended on a number of items including chemicals, nuclear separation materials, integrated circuits, submersible systems and certain technologies.

The new Order comes into force on 1 January 1988 and gives legal effect to the revisions agreed since 1985 by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, (COCOM), to the detailed list of goods and technologies whose export is controlled for strategic reasons.