CONFIDENTIAL
Amendment to (109
S. Stewart, Esq.,M.C. Industries Division 1, Board of Trade,
1 Victoria Street,
London, S.W.1.
8th September, 1969.
As a
During our talks at the end of last week about the Canadian case on non-cotton textiles you raised certain questions concerning the sets of tables you handed us the other day on imports of garments into the U.K. follow-up to what was said then I thought that it would perhaps be helpful if I were to set down on paper my preliminary reactions to the data contained in the tables. This I have done below. In addition, on this and other occasions you have made certain remarks with regard to the possible future treatment of imports of textiles into the U.K. from Hong Kong which were disturbing and carried wide ranging implications. They may not have been intended seriously, in which case we would be glad to have your confirmation that this is the case. But, in case there may be more to what you have said than that, I will comment on your remarks briefly at the end of this letter.
But you nevertheless indicated
2. Your first set of tables contained statistics of U.K. production, imports, exports, apparent consumption and Imports from Hong Kong of various garments of all fibres since 1965. You said that your object in producing this was to see how the figures looked and that you certainly would not consider every item as a serious case for claiming market disruption. that, in your view, the figures on some items showed a better case against Hong Kong than did certain of the items on which Hong Kong has conceded voluntary restraints to other countries. This is an assertion you have made on a number of occasions in the past and I am glad that we now have the figures against which we can test its validity.
3. Having made a careful study of the data, however, the only conclusion I can draw is that, if you were to approach Hong Kong with requests for voluntary restraint on any of the non-cotton textiles in the list, in not one instance would you be able to show evidence of serious injury to the U.K. industry caused by imports from Hong Kong on the basis of the criteria we have adopted before agreeing to restrain exports to other countries. There are admittedly some cases where imports account for a relatively high share of apparent consumption (e.g. men's and boys' trousers 48.9%, shirts 33.3%, men's and boys' nightwear 40.1%, undergarments, men's and women's 34.4%, men's and boys' coats and waist- coats 22.2%, all in 1968). But in all these instances the larger part of the imports involved are cotton and not non- cotton. Furthermore, in every case where you point to a high share for Hong Kong this is overwhelmingly due to performance in cottons. In no case does Hong Kong make more than a small dent in the U.K. market in the non-cotton