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Hong Kong Department,
24 November, 1969
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You asked me to check whether Hong Kong had made any estimates of the probable effect on her economy of her joining the EEC. Mr. Toms' minute of 4 November to you refers.
In commenting upon Britain's attempt to enter the EEC in 1962 the Hong Kong annual report includes the following:
"During the first phase of the negotiations in Brussels between Britain and the Six, which ended on 5th August, it became clear that the Six were not prepared to contemplate association for Hong Kong under the Treaty of Rome or to make other arrangements which would preserve duty free entry into the United Kingdom for Hong Kong pro- ducts. So far as association was concerned, the Six main- tained that the economic position in Hong Kong was quite different from that of the States for which association had been devised. They also made it clear in the negotia- tions generally that they attached importance to any arrangements to help Commonwealth countries in the field of industrial products being so designed that they included from the beginning some recognition of the common tariff as the essential feature of the Community Customs Union. No further formal negotiations concerning Hong Kong took place during this phase, but at the ministerial meeting which ended on 5th August it was agreed that member States should work out with HM Government before Britain's entry into the Community appropriate measures for Hong Kong in the field of trade relations,"
The Committee could be told that there is no reason to suppose that the EEC would take a different view in future negotiations from that outlined in the 1962 year book.
Obviously the Hong Kong Government have conducted their own exercises on the effects on their economy of Britain joining the EEC but their conclusions are not, I am afraid, available for the BNEC (Asia) Committee. Strictly for your own information Hong Kong is at present engaged in revising and up-dating these estimates. The only public document which is relevant is a rather inconclusive and economically unsatisfying Report of the Hong Kong Working Party on the EEC. Published in 1963 this Report represented the findings of a public committee headed by Professor E. Stuart-Kirby, then of Hong Kong University.
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