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Reference
RECORD OF MEETING HELD AT THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE ON 3 OCTOBER 1972
HONG KONG'S GATT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ENLARGED EEC FOLLOWING THE UK's ACCESSION
In the chair: Mr G L Simmons
FCO
Miss J E Elliott DTI
Mr I M Sinclair
Mr R B Crowson
Mr J V Hagestadt DTI
Mr A R Clark
Mr M A Goodfellow
Hong Kong
Mr C P Haddon-Cave
Financial Secretary HK
Mr D Sellers
HK Government Office
Mr G I Pearson
Counsellor, HK Affairs UKMIS Geneva
Mr P Dodge
HK Government Office Brussels
1.
Mr Haddon-Cave said that Hong Kong and the UK were on common ground in the paper drawn up by Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department and sent to him under cover of Mr Laird's letter dated 25 August.
2.
Mr Haddon-Cave said that he had no further solutions to offer to the problem under discussion beyond those described in paragraph 8 of the paper. Of the four possibilities his preference (with reference to that paragraph) were in the following order:
(iv) Provided the GATT agreed this should enable Hong Kong's views to be heard without undue embarrassment to the United Kongdom and this would provide the most satisfactory solution. There was some discussion whether there were any precedents in GATT for such an arrangement, or whether this solution would itself serve as a precedent. On the first point, there was no precedent; on the second point, should the Secretariat express concern about the establishment of a precedent, it should be pointed out that Hong Kong was important and different from other metropolitan territories. Mr Pearson said he thought the GATT would be more likely to agree to this arrangement if the Hong Kong represent- ative sat as an extension of rather than separate from the UK delegation.
(ii) This presumably could be presentationally difficult for the United Kingdom and the EEC, and might well raise problems for Hong Kong. Its success as a solution depended rather too heavily on EEC co-operation.
/Nonetheless
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DD 897152 154596 500M 2/72 GM 3643/2