Statement presented by the long Zong Textile and Apparel Industries Deleration to P.W. Ridley, CBE, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Industry on 23rd June 1977.
This deleration represents 13 textiles and clothing manu-
facturers' associations in Hong Kong, whose members cover the bulk
of Hong Kong's textiles and clothing industries. The views which
I express are therefore those not only of the group of people you
see here but those of the Hong Kong textiles and garment industries
as a whole.
2.
We know that you are already familiar with Hong Kong's very
heavy reliance on exports and in particular on exports of textiles
and clothing products. I do not intend therefore to repeat the
facts and figures in detail but would simply like to point out
that Hong Kong's exports of textiles and clothing account for over
half of the value of her total exports. Correspondingly our textiles
and clothing industry provides jobs for almost half of our industrial
labour force and represents about half of our total industrial
production.
3.
Our textiles and clothing exports are heavily dependent
on two major overseas markets the EEC and the USA. In 1976, 36%
by value of our textiles and clothing exports went to the EEC,
including 13% to the UK; and 30% went to the USA.
You can see from these figures that unfavourable developments
in our two biggest overseas markets have far-reaching effects on
our economy as a whole. At present the bulk of our textiles and
clothing exports to these two markets are covered by bilateral
export restraint agreements concluded under the Multi-Fibre Arrangemen
the NZA. Those two agreements as well as the NFA itself are due
to expire this year our bilateral agreement with the USA will
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