Registry No.
HKK 6/534/1 DRAFT LETTER
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
To:-
Type 1 +
Hong Kong Government Office,
54 Pall Mall, S.W.1.
From
H. H. Stewart
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
D. M. Sellers, Esq.,
In Confidence
Jain
не
I am afraid that I have failed to
carry out the promise I made to you in my
letter HKK 6/534/1 dated 24th October, 1968, to
raise with your Government the question of
extending the Anglo-Benelux Agreed Minute on
Trade to cover the Dependent Territories before
the annual renewal of the Agreed Minute. Now
I fear it is too late to do so, the occasion
having in a sense passed by. This year there
was no such meeting with Belgian and Netherlands
delegations as was held a year ago, when the
Board of Trade proposal to include reference to
the overseas territories of the United Kingdom
was first considered. There was therefore no
full dress opportunity, as it were, on which
to pursue the matter.
2.
However, it is not necessarily the case
that the Board of Trade have abandoned their
proposal; indeed, as late as November last the
discussions with Serraris in the Netherlands
Ministry of Economic Affairs which began after
were
the 1967 meeting was still continuing with the
same end in mind.
Judging from the papers I
would have to admit that Serraris had been from
the start something of an optimist over this
his
Nevertheless, the last recorded
matter.
observation was
the Board of Trade, that he
W(B)L 51-7433
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saw no reason for not accepting their request
and that he hoped he could bring his Benelux