Total
Hong Kong
1967
1968
Jan-Sert 1969
106
119
206
91
203
243
The figure of 998 for Hong Kong exports in the year ending 31 March 1970, quoted in MK telegram No 263, shows a considerable increase, but even so it is walikely that Hong Kong's share of the cotton/woven n.n.f. market will be found to have increased significantly between 1967 and 1969/70.
Conclusion. There is no evidence that imports from Hong Kang are causing or threatening serious injury to domestic producers; and the oase would almost certainly look weaker still if knitted a.m.f. nightwear were to be included in the figures.
Knitted Undergarments
1. The Swedes have produced no figures for woven cotton and even a.m.f. undergarments .g. cotton trunks, which are "like or directly competitive" with knitted items.
2.
now by Imports of knitted gotton undergarments from Denmark in 1969 ware merely three times higher than from Hong Kong and were equal to 56 per cent of Swedish production. Moreover, the average price before payment of duty was actually lower than from Hong Kong- It is now clear that the imposition of restrictions on imports from Hong Kong was a breach of Article 4 of the L.T.A.: the increase in imports from Hong Kong accounted for only 10 per cent of the increase on total imports between 1968 and 1969, and the increase in production was not far short of the increase in total imports.
3. The Swedes have never been clear what is being imported from Hong Kong as women's and girls' knitted continuous m.n.f. undergarments at less than 2/0d par piece, or who is being injured by this low value trade. We have also been given ne figures for knitted discontinuous a.a. f. undergarments. The UK apparently has a similar though much smaller trade, presumably womená briefs. Swedish production has declined, but there is no evidence that it is" like or directly competitive" with these imports.
4.
We have been given no production sto figures for men's and boys' knitted u.n.f. undergarments. It is not alear whether the Swedes will limit the consultations to continuous a.a.f., but, if so, we would need to take the discontinuous figures into account – a big trade is developing in polyester/ sotton and poly /cotton mixtures. The Swedish trade statistics show that Finland was the leading supplier of man's and boys' m.n.f. underwear in the first nine months of 1969: and that the figure of 752,000 quoted in UK telegram 263 for the year ending 31.3.70 is small compared to the total of cotton and
..f. combined.
Conclusion. There my be an injury ssss in purely statistical terms to Swedish produsers of women's briefs, but if so the danger canes as much from Denmark
ootton) as from Hong Kong (n.n.f.). There is no case for restricting imparts ef man's underwear of any description.
- Je