R&R
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Mr. Wilford
On Friday last I received from the Hong Kong Government Office a record of informal discussions which Mr. Jordan held in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo on 19 June. There were three items for discussion but the one with which I am concerned here is the review of the current agreement. From paragraph 5 of the record you will see that the Norwegians "could not rule out the possibility of a request for consultation if the present trends (of Hong Kong exports) continued". Mr. Jordan suggested that the end of August or some time in September in Oslo would be the best date and venue for the next consultation. The subject for any such consultation would be the extension in time and in scope of the current Hong Kong/Norway Voluntary Restraint Agreements. It is evident that we are fast approaching another Canadian situation.
2. I recommend that we send Hong Kong an immediate telegram advising them that we will take the same sort of interest in these Norwegian consultations as we have had to take with the Canadians. I submit a draft.
3. Leaving out their agreement on cotton items, Hong Kong has two Voluntary Restraint Agreements with Norway. They run until 30 September.
4. The first instituted a year ago a system of Export Authorisations (E. A. s)three categories of M.M.F. items. Under the E. A. system no export licences are issued for the items concerned unless an E. A. has first been obtained. Norway are provided with advance information of the development of exports in these items and on request by the Norwegian Government at any time Hong Kong is obliged to discontinue the issue of Authorisations.
5. The second agreement imposes a limit within which the exports of three more categories of M. M. F. garments have to be restrained.
6. In paragraph 5 of the Oslo record, we see which items are causing concern to the Norwegians and we can be fairly sure that where the items concerned are under E. As the Norwegians will seek to go further and put them under restraint, and where the items are neither
/restrained nor