BY JAMES LEUNG
WHITEHALL will take up Hongkong's case against discrimination under the European Economic Community's generalised scheme of preferences from which the Colony's exports of textiles and footwear are excluded.
In Parliament yesterday, the British Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr Anthony Royle, slashed at the unfair treatment Hongkong would be subject to under the existing context
of the scheme.
Не said: The arrangements agreed by our partners in 1971 may have seemed to them, not ungenerous, but an important consideration now was that since 1971 the situation had
U.K. backing
for Colony's
POST- HERALD
11-73
export role
changed to the detriment of textiles and footwear to be Hongkong.
"The Philippines, Thailand and Yugoslavia, all of them serious competitors of the Colony, had become beneficiaries under the community's scheme in respect of cotton textiles."
He revealed that the British Government intended to press resolutely for Hongkong
included in the EEC's general system of preferences from 1975 onwards.
Mr Royle informed Parliament that Whitehall had already informed its EEC partners of its intention.
"We had examined this matter carefully and had concluded that in present circumstances it was no
longer acceptable for discrimination to
against Hongkong," he stated.HK'S EXPORT ROLE BACKED
Earlier in October, Mr Royle was quoted as having said that Hongkong's biggest problem in the next five years would be to maintain its markets in Europe while facing strong competition from other countries in the region and Europe's nervousness of its corn- petitiveness.
Speaking at the conference on business opportunities in the Pacific Basin held in Singapore, Mr Royle pledged that Hongkong would have all the help possible from Britain to overcome these problems.
Such assurances were also given to Hongkong by a long line of visiting politicians and officials from Britain.
.
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(From Page 1)
Lord Thorneycroft, Chairman of the British Overseas Trade Board and a veteran advocate of Common Market Membership, said here recently that our exporters' efforts to sell in the EEC would be strengthened by the voice of Whitehall in the enlarged EEC.
He boldly stated: "You (Hongkong) can depend on us to put the punch into
the argument because we have the cards to play."
Mr Royle's statement yesterday made in Parliament should be welcome by the local business circles which view gravely the difficulties which its textiles and footwear exports face in competing with those of other developing countries, not only in Europe but Britain in particular because as from January 1 next year Britain, as an EEC member, will have to conform to the scheme of preferences.