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price for these 'concessions' was agreement to discuss not whether but only how much of our trade should be redistributed to others.
After we had, at the request of the EEC negotiator, recessed for a week, we offered on 4th November a package proposal. This was done because it was apparent the negotiations were getting nowhere. The proposals went a long way to meet the EEC demands and involved what were in our view reasonable departures from the provisions of the MFA.
The Community has admitted that these proposals were a real move forward by Hong Kong and that they met the EEC's requirement that imports should be stabilised at the 1976 level.
This was a very substantial concession by Hong Kong. In our view it was on the very edge of what could be considered 'reasonable departures' from the MFA. It involved considerable cutbacks on our 1977 quota limits. And it was made despite the fact that the Community had not, apart from very general remarks about the state of its textile industries and unsupported statements that particular products are particularly 'sensitive', provided any objective justification for any particular restraint or limit.
Our proposals were totally rejected by the Community on the sole grounds that we had not offered the 'sacrifices' that the EEC had continually said it requires from dominant suppliers.
This is not a demand for which we can find justification on economic or legal grounds. It bears no relation to the MFA or to the document to which we and the EEC subscribed envisaging the possibility of 'jointly agreed reasonable departure' from the MFA.
In view of the indefinite suspension of these negotiations by the EEC, the Hong Kong delegation and the Textiles advisory Board is returning to Hong Kong. We shall be prepared to return to Brussels when there is an indication from the EEC that they are ready to resume negotiations on a meaningful basis. It is still our earnest wish to reach a fair, equitable and mutually acceptable agreement.