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of restrictions and a regression from the principles of
progressive liberalisation. Why, indeed, at a time when
over 60 per cent of the textile exports of Hong Kong
(or about 30 per cent of our total domestic exports) are
subject to restraint should there be threats, and even
actions, on the part of some of our major trading partners
to curtail or actually cut back on the export opportunities
of the industry on which so much of this community's
livelihood depends?
questions.
I wish the answers were as easy to state as the
The original reasons given fifteen or twenty
years ago, about the need for a breathing space for outdated
industries to modernise or phase out, have long since lost
credibility. The arguments based on labour cost differentials
wear thin in the primary and secondary sectors, that is
spinning and weaving, where the more modern plants in Europe
and North America are computer controlled and capital
intensive to the point where a human presence on the mill
floor is a rarity.
In the garment sector, of course, the C.M.T.
costs cut, make and trim - still depend largely on the
labour element. The arguments based on this differential,
however, deny the basic rightness of an international
redistribution of labour according to competitiveness and
often prescribe a solution which naively suggests that the
less developed areas should push up labour costs to the
point where they equate roughly with those of developed
countries; and thereby become internationally uncompetitive.
The proponents of such measures appear to give little thought
/to