SPEAKING NOTES
We are concerned at American attempts to secure
bilateral agreements with the main Asian suppliers for comprehensive restraint of their exports of non-cotton
textiles. These attempts have obvious dengers for the
future liberalisation of world trade and for the future of
GATT which our EPM colleagues and ourselves are united in agreeing are objectives of major importance. We hope that
we can rely on the rest of EFTA to do everything possible to
counter these protectionist moves.
2.
We are therefore particularly sorry to note that Sweder has been urging Hong Kong to extend the restraints
which the latter has voluntarily agreed to exercise over
exports of a few items where she accepted that Sweden had a case of injury to domestic producers. The first discus-
sion of the new Swedish requests have indicated that the
claim of injury can scarcely be substantiated for many of
them; we hope that the Swedish Government will re-consider these requests very carefully in the light of their probable repercussions on world trade.
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