use of Article XIX. The position seemed to be that the Ministry of
Technology were in favour of pressing for any restraints on non-
cotton textiles to be imposed under Article XIX while the Board of
Trade and the FCO were against this proposition.
The present position seemed to be as he had said at the outset that
further moves depended on the Japanese. If the Japanese gave way
to the Americans on the question of voluntary restraint, then the
other Asian countries would have to do so also. If, on the other
hand, there was to be an international discussion of the problem of
textile imports into the USA, then the UK and the FEC would prefer this to take place in GATT and not in the
th CTC.
A decision should be taken on what the line was to be in the
discussions with Mr. Ernst of the ERC Commission. The EEC had
mooted the last meeting of the Cotton Textiles Committee the idea
that there should be "a GATT study" and the question arose whether
we wanted to elaborate this. His own view was that we probably
should not attempt to elaborate this at this stage.
Mr. Jones said that there was a difference between the interests
of Hong Kong and Japan if there was to be any question of extending
the CTA to non-cotton textiles.
Hený
Kony
exorted to the USA something
like 400 million square yards of cotton textiles against only
100 million square yards of m.m.f. textiles. The Japanese figures,
however, were approximately something less than 400 million square
yards of cotton and more than 400 million square yards of m.m.f.
It followed from this that Hong Kong would prefer that there should
be provisions for "roll-in" of quotas for cotton and m..f. goods
while it would suit Japan better to have separate quotas for cotton
and m.m.f. This led to the conclusion that Hong Kong would do
better under a system by which cotton and m.m.f. textiles were con-
They
trolled under the same instrumen
instrument, and,would therefore prefer any
discussion of restrictions on m.m.f. textiles to be within the
Cotton Textiles Committee.
/Mr. Jordan
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