''
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Answering questions, Sir Christopher said: "Undoubtedly there has been considerable monetary chaos in the world. There has been a collapse of confidence in the system and that has demonstrated itself in the wide fluctuations between the different currencies,
"These movements affect to a considerable extent opportunities between tries."
trade coun-
He declared, commenting on the GATT talks: "There is no good our sitting down on these long negotiations to reduce by an average X per cent the tariffs on a reciprocal basis between various countries if, at the end of the day, we are living in the same sort of monetary chaos."
The EEC line has always been that parallel progress would be needed in the world monetary situation, and thése would involve separate talks.
Sir Christopher added: "The quicker international monetary reform can be brought about the better for the world. In the long term, we don't believe that the world can live satisfactorily without far more order put into the international monetary
scene.
"3
No promise
of a better deal for HK in Europe
By DAVID WATSON
Britain's Common Market Commissioner, Sir Christopher Soames, left Hongkong yesterday with no promises for bettering the Colony's trading deal in Europe.
He told a press conference at Kai Tak: "Hongkong has been able to take considerable advantages under the EEC generalised preferences scheme. It comes second or third in the countries to take advantage of the scheme."
However, Sir Christopher - flying to Tokyo for the opening of world-wide trade talks admitted that Hongkong's two chief industries, textiles and footwear, are excluded from trade preferences and gave no hint of any change.
But he added: "This is a living scheme, which was not introduced once and for all. It is reviewed each year."
Sir Christopher, who heads a seven-strong delegation from the EEC Commission, was leaving the Colony after a three-day stopover. He is to attend the opening of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), where some 80 nations are expected to spend the next three days thrashing out new trade arrangements.
During his stay in Hongkong, he met Government officials, as well as Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils.
He said Hongkong was an important trading centre and "therefore it was useful to have some understanding of Hongkong's views."
He had found Hongkong to be "closely concerned" with GATT's own forthcoming textiles agreement, which is scheduled to be discussed in Tokyo, but added that local textiles manufacturers are already major suppliers to Europe, despite exclusion from the preference scheme.
Sir Christopher said that, on the broader front, the Colony had not been a ben ficiary of the EEC preference scheme until the enlargement of the Common Market by Britain's entry.
While the GATT talks would deal with cotton and multi-fibre materials, he felt it was too early to say what position the EEC would adopt in the negotiations.
*
But he added: "We wish to see liberalisation of trade among industrialised countries and we see this possible by reduction on tariffs."
SIR CHRISTOPHER
The EEC had the lowest average tariffs of any industrialised country in the world, claimed Sir Christopher.
If such liberalisation took place, he felt it would increase trade between the countries of the world and also ensure that developing nations would have their share.