HONG KONG-BEC RELATIONS
At the beginning of the abortive 1961/63 negotiations the UK
proposed that Hong Kong should be associated with the enlarged
Community under Part IV of the Treaty of Rome. The Six rejected
this prosal as they did not consider that association was
appropriate for a dependent territory with well developed manufac-
turing industries. By the time the nogotiations had broken down
agreement had merely been reached that the Member States and the
UK would work out, before Britain's entry, "appropriate measures
in the field of trade relations". A more realistic approach was
made in the recent enlargement negotiations when it was decided,
with the approval of the Hong Kong Government, that we should make
strenuous efforts to ensure that the EC included Hong Kong among
the beneficiaries of her Generalised Preference Scheme, even at
the price of some discriminatory limitations of the quantity of
her exports that could benefit. At the same time, we proposed
again that Hong Kong be granted Part IV association.
this latter proposal was rejected.
As expected,
2. Our limited objective of getting the EC to agree to extend
the GSF to Hong Kong was achieved, but a wide range of her exports
(in the textiles and footwear field) were excluded from the scheme
and low duty-free ceilings were placed on a number of her other
key exporta.
3. Our principal objective, now that we are members of the
Community, is to ensure that the benefits Hong Kong derives from
her inclusion in the GSF are improved rather than eroded and that
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