Hw.
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry
No. Hkk b/28
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential, Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
..In Confidence
DRAFT LETTER
To:-
Miss M. V. Muskett,
Board of Trade.
Type 1+ 5
From
J. N. McKelvie
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department T.P.D.
Mr.
[71ag C]
JMcK
Kelion
Mr. Guttyh
19/8
Anne Stoddart
14/8
Hong Kong: Preference on Indian Tobacco
Търши
You wrote to O'Leary on 8 July about the represen-
tations made by the Indian High Commission about Hong
Kong's treatment of tobacco imports from India.
2.
Our Legal Advisers agree with you that by signing
(1967)
the Geneva Protocol,(which showed the reduction of
Commonwealth preference by Hong Kong on unmanufactured
tobacco with Malawi as the sole exception), the Indian
elimination
authorities accepted the limitation or reduction of
certain preferential margins to which they were entitled
under the Trade Agreement. They cannot, therefore,
now use the provisions of the Trade Agreement to ques-
tion the implementation of the Kennedy Round Concessions.
3. A reply on these lines is not, however, likely to
find much favour with the Indians, especially as they
seem to be right in claiming that the exception for
Malawi was never specifically drawn to their attention,
(see the correspondence between Germans and Pradhan in
Geneva enclosed with Jones Saving telegram HK/GVA/160/
168 of 18 December 1968). I do not need to remind you
of the recent telegrams reporting mounting resentment
in Delhi over our action on cotton textiles,
The ques- of tobacco
but
Jones
tion to echo is not, of course, directly related
I fear that an unhelpful reply to the Indians on tobac-
co at the moment (however well justified from a legal
point of view) would merely reinforce their feeling that
- 1
(118281) Dd. 391599 1,500M 2/69