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expire at the end of September; our bilateral agreement with the
EEC, and also the MFA itself, at the end of 1977.
5.
The whole of Hong Kong's textiles and clothing industry
is seriously concerned about developments in all three areas but
the purpose of our visit here is mainly to express our concern
at the policies which are reportedly being pursued by the EEC
and by the UK Government in respect of the future of the MFA and,
in consequence, the terms of a new bilateral agreement between
Hong Kong and the EEC.
6.
As far as the UK is concerned, I am sure you will agree
that the Hong Kong industry has always recognised the difficulties
of its UK counterpart.
textiles to the UK were first put under restraint on an industry to
industry basis, Hong Kong has conceded more to the UK than it has to
any other importing country. I need not remind you that where cotton
textiles were concerned, since 1959 the annual growth rates on
restraint limits was only 1% until 1972 when polyester/cotton
textiles were also placed under restraint and the annual growth
rate became 2%. When the MFA came into force in 1974, we were
glad to note that one of its basic objective was to "achieve the
expansion of trade, the reduction of barriers to such trade and
the progressive liberalisation of world trade in textile products".
But instead things took a turn for the worse as far as the UK was
concerned. It is now history that when the present HK/EEC Textiles
Agreement was concluded in 1975 we had to accept annual growth rates
for the UK market in 7 restraint items at 0.5% only and for the UK
market as a whole only something around 2%.
Indeed since 1959 when our exports of cotton
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