Note of Meeting hall at Board of Trade
10.30 a., Tuesday, November 25th
R&R. 4S
on Current Commercial Policy Issues as they affect Hong Kong
45
1. 2.5.C. Common Commercial Folioy
Those present:
Mr. ". Jordan
Mr. 1. Jones
Mr. Sellers
Mr. J. McKelvie
Mr. . Stewart —
Mr. Goldsmith
Kr. Durnett
Mr. Kemmis
kr. Ingram
Mr. Woodhead
Mr.
Hong Kong
}
F.C.0.
(Chairman)
IR G. TRIM:01
- SDEC 1969
HKILG/24
Board of Trade
Morris
Miss Statham
Mr. Goldsmith opened the meeting by inviting Mr. Jones to cutline a paper he had produced on the problem rised for Hong Kong by the E.E.C.'s common commercial policy.
2.
Mr. Jones explained that under the terms of the Treaty of Rome, it was necessary for the Community to create a common commercial policy by the end of 19. All six members of the E.E.C. have different systems of quan- titative restrictions against Japan and the Eastern Area; the French alone had quantitative restrictions particularly affecting Hong Kong. These were illegal on three counts; they should have been removed in the 1950s under the auspices of the C.... and they were contrary to GATT in that they were discriminatory against Hong Kong and were not imposed for balance of payments reasons. The Commission had divided quantitative restrictions into sections and proposed for each section either liberalisation, surveillance or community quotas. For umbrellas and footwear, commodities for which France had maintained quantitative restrictions, the Commission now proposed Community quantitative restrictions; in effect the French restrictions would be taken over by the whole Community. The question was thus raised as to what Hong Kong should do.
3.
At present it looked as if the Community woul” have difficulty in reaching agreement on the sector approach. There were proposals for negotiation with Japan on liberalisation or voluntary restraint agreements in return for Japanese liberalisation of her own restrictions. Following from this policy would be proposals for ocuntry-by-country negotiations. Hong Kong unlike Japan had no restrictions with which to negotiate, in fact she imported more from E.“.C. than she exported to her. The only commodity with which she had to negotiate was her own GATT rights. Ernst had suggested in recent talks that an article XIX type solution might be sought. He had been told that if the Community wished to act illegally no doubt they would be challenged in the GATT for doing so. The quotas which the Commission had proposed were uneven, based on old trade figures. In the case of umbrellas and footwear there were large quotas proposed for imports into Germany but negligible amounts for France and Italy.
/4. Mr. Goldsmith,