Registry
No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
..In Confidence
DRAFT
BRIEF
To:-
VISIT OF HONG KONG TEXTILES DELEGATION
CALL ON MR MURRAY, 3.30 P.M., 21 JUNE
Type 1 +
From
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
DSR11
All Growth ни
Crawll
(
TEXTILES:
LINE TO TAKE
MULTI-FIBRE ARRANGEMENT
1. The Hong Kong textile industry has been worried by
reports of the Community being about to take a protectionist
stance in the Geneva negotiations on the Multi-Fibre
Arrangement, which are now due to begin on 5 July.
There is
no serious cause for alarm. Hong Kong has large and
assured access for her textile imports into the Community
market, not least into the UK. The great bulk of that
access is not likely to be affected.
2.
However, the Hong Kong industry must recognise that the
Community too has a serious problem. Its textile industry,
which in the UK employs 800,000 or more workers, has been
severely hit by low-cost imports in a period of serious
recession. The greatest problem has been that of cumulative
market disruption. The Community market is simply not able
to stand the addition of ever-increasing imports from new
sources of sensitive products into a market already hit by
the large, assured access of the dominant suppliers.
Consequently, some measures will be needed to deal with this problem.)
/3.
Dd 108087 400M S&K 1/77