Hong Kong and Indian (cean Department
LAST
R
N5%)
RCF.
iss J
1liott
Department of rade and Industry Commercial Relations & Exports
1 Victoria Street
LONDON SW1H OD
47
3
6/8
21 July 1972
HONG KONG'S GATT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SEC
1 Please refer to your letter of 10 July addressed to Tony Jambert. I am replying as I have now returned from
leave.
2 I took up with our legal adviser the point you raised in your letter. He has made the following comments, which I pass to you in full.
"I cannot, without investigating the matter much more closely, usefully add to paragraph 10 of my minute of 15 June. So far as I know, Article XXVI: 5(c) has only operated on independence. If it were to operate before independence, the customs territory concerned would have no international personality and would be incapable of assuming international rights and obligations. In the case of Hong Kong, for example, the rights and obligations arising under Article XXVI: 5(c) would be those of the United Kingdom. The distinction between being deemed to be a con- tracting party before independence under Article XXVI: 5(c) and being, exclusively for the purposes of the territorial application of the General Agree- ment, treated as a contracting party under Article XXIV: 1 is not clear. The intention seems to have been to make the relationship between the customs territory and the contracting parties nore direct in the former case, nd also to create a relation- ship between the customs territory and the State of which it is part. How this was to operate is very
obscure."
( A Goodfellow)