5
11
I will now turn briefly to the Hong Kong industry.
It is, as you well know, very vulnerable to external forces.
Our exports of textiles and clothing as a whole increased
substantially in 1976 and you will probably say that we are
in a healthy state. But we are not. I will not quote figures,
but, if you look at our industry sector by sector, you will
find that the spinning and weaving sectors did not do as well
as the garment sector even in 1976 and were only able to
recover from the recession in 1974 and 1975 because of the
demand generated by the boom in our garment exports in 1976.
Going back to the overall picture, in the first four months
of 1977, in spite of increases in value, our exports to the
UK of restrained textiles and clothing items dropped by about
30% compared with the same period in 1976; and for the UK
even 1976 was not a good year in terms of quantity our exports
of restrained items to the UK dropped by about 1% in volume.
In the first four months of 1977, our exports of restrained
textiles and clothing items to the EEC as a whole also dropped
by about 30%. In this period, the quantity of our exports
of restrained textiles and clothing items to the USA increased
only marginally by 1%. The prognosis for 1977 looks bad on the
basis of these 1977 export figures; and the future looks even
bleaker when we read the news from Geneva and Brussels.
12
Our request is not for special treatment for our exports
to the UK or the EEC. We have never sought such treatment and
never will. We have always competed in our overseas markets with
other suppliers on the basis of fair competition. We intend to
continue to compete fairly for our share of the markets of the
world. We are not ashamed of our past achievements and have no
guilty conscience over what the EEC has publicly referred to as
.../.