50
CONFIDENTIL
To: Director of Commerce and Industry, Hong Kong.
RECEIVED IN
From:
Counsellor (Hong Kong Affairs), Geneva.
Memorandum No. 75
File No. GVA/4/34 GVA/4/37
Date: 8 May 1969
My memorandum No. 64 of 18 April and F.C.0. Telegram to this Mission No.140 of 28 April.
GATT
Committee on Trade in Industrial Products
Discussion of French Restrictions
I am afraid that the rush of business recently has prevented me from reporting sooner on the outcome of the discussion of French residual import restrictions during the current meeting of the above Committee.
REGISTRY No. 51
13 MAY 1969
2.
The centre piece of the notifications against Prance under this item was undoubtedly that of Hong Kong but there was also a long list of other notifications occupying pages 18 and 19 of COM. IND/6/Add.4 and which the Chairman (tuyck, Belgium) drily remarked took up three pages of the French text.
Hong Kong
3. hen the Hong Kong notification was reached I said that French residual restrictions were contained in a number of lists which were administered through global quotas, bilatera. agreements or unilateral quotas. Among these lists was a list of unilateral quotas imposed on imports from Hong Kong. They covered a range of products which together accounted for at least a half of Hong Kong's global exports and the quotas imposed were in all cases extremely small. Apart from this, the administration of the quotas and resultant fragmentation of licences (although efforts had been made to improve this recently) still made it very difficult to fill even the small quotas allocated. Of the items restricted, two, namely 85.03 (torch batteries) and 85.10 (torches), were restricted only to Hong Kong and not to other contracting parties. The remaining items were also restricted from at least some other contracting parties but the list of individual quotas applied to Hong Kong alone, as opposed to the establishment of global quotas, appeared dubious in terms of Article XIII of the GATT. 4. I went on to add that, in our opinion, the effect of these quotas was to severely limit Hong Kong's trade with France. This was borne out by the figures. In 1967 Hong Kong's exports to France came to only about U.S.4.5 million. This compared with SU.S.61.8 million to Federal Germany 13 times as much), U.S.18.2 million to the Netherlands
times as much), U.S.23.2 million to Sweden (5 times as much) and U.S.7.5 million to Norway (or 11⁄2 times as much).
atter three countries especially Norway smaller populations than France. To the U.K. tiong Kong's exports, on the other hand, were some 43 times as much as to France and to the U.S. 92 times as much. Furthermore, the
11CK 0/812/1
CONFIDENTIAL
fox
or
Yor
The
had very much
/indirect