- 5
5-
In
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.
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.
11.
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 EC has both publicly and in private referred to as our predominant share of the Community market.
think it is unfair to attack Hong Kong's position or to suggest
that if Hong Kong was restrained more severely, then other developing
countries could benefit at our expense. This concept of doubly
penalising the successful to win political credit with the less
successful seems to us basically dishonest. we feel that if the
objective of the developed countries is really to assist the less
developed among the developing countries, then the textiles and
clothing exports of there developing countries, ought to be allowed
to grow, if they can, in competition with established suppliers.
It is not reasonable to say that they should first be placed
under restraint and then allowed artificially induced growth