CONFIDENTIAL
Reference...
Mr. Carter, Hong Kong Dept.
127
Hong Kong: Textile Talks with Sweden.
During my visit to Hong Kong Mr. Jordan, Acting Director of Commerce and Industry, referred briefly to the forthcoming talks with the Swedes in response to their request for voluntary restraint on certain non-cotton textile items. Mr. Jordan showed me the telegram which had been sent from London just after my visit began.
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He admitted that the concessions given to the Swedes by Hong Kong last year might have been based on "somewhat bogus" considerations (he himself had not been concerned with these talks). But he understood that the case had been conceded partly for Swedish political reasons and the criteria which had been adopted by Hong Kong for voluntary restraint in later talks had become much tougher.
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3.
Mr. Jordan said that Mr. Haddon-Cave had found Bason. De Geer's negotiating technique unpalatable but
this was ascribed to. De Geer's inex erience in textile negotiations at that time. Mr. Jordan had found him straight-forward and believed that the Swedes had a genuine case on the three new items on which they were now asking for restraint. He was at pains to reassure me that Hong Kong fully appreciate the need to be tough in negotiations and the dangers of creeping precedents.
4. Mr. Jordan also discounted the dangers of the voluntary restraint arrangements which they had made with other countries on a few selected items in the context of the U.S. Textiles Exercise. He said that it could, in his view, be argued that the existence of these arrangements helped Hong Kong since it made the countries concerned less likely to be receptive to the U.S. proposals. There is no doubt that, as I have recorded in a separate note, the Americans profess themselves not to be greatly interested in Hong Kong's bilateral arrangements for the purpose of the broad exercise which they hat in mind.
5.
Mr. Jordan is considering a visit to London in conjunction with his visit to Stockholm. At the moment he is thinking in terms of a visit after the Stockholm negotiations. I suggested that there might be advantage in his coming here before his visit to Stockholm though I realised that this might depend on the considered reactions of the authorities at home on the Swedish figures which they were currently examining. If it was found necessary to question the negotiating brief for the Stockholm talks there might well be advantage in Mr. Jordan visiting London before going to Stockholm. Jordan took this point but said that in those circumstances he would have to come here at least a week before going to Stockholm since his negotiating instructions would probably not give him sufficient flexibility to modify his line at very short notice.
Mr.
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