NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Hong Kong in the Community scheme subject to
a number of reservations. The complete
exclusion of textiles and shoes was one of
these reservations. At one stage it appeared
that the EEC could be unwilling to include
Hong Kong in its offer at all and now that the
have gone some way towards doing so it would
be highly undesirable for us to raise with
them the question of textiles and shoes.
Furthermore we have no locus standi to urge
the EEC to delete items from their offer
(especially as we have removed textiles from
our own). On the contrary we should urge
them to be as generous as possible. Any
further narrowing of the EEC offer is liable to upset
the delicate equilibrium between
donor offers and would strongly encourage the
ujet
US Congress to urge the legislation to imple-
ment the generalised preferences scheme. The
US exclusion of textiles and footwear is
balanced by the EEC's imposition of duty
quotas on sensitive items, whereas the
Americans offer duty free entry for everything
included in their scheme.