SECRETARY OF STATE'S VISIT TO HONG KONG 26-30 JANUARY
BACKGROUND PAPER No.4
Imports of Sensitive Items into the UK
Background Paper No 4
MINS
The UK has accepted the MTN Agreements in respect of its metropolitan territory and the territories for which it has international responsibility excluding certain specified exceptions.
2 Hong Kong requested that she should accept the agreements separately; but we considered this to be inappropriate as it would not accord with the GATT provisions about dependent territories and would be out of keeping with normal treaty practice. Hong Kong was finally content with a form of words in the UK acceptance which drew particular attention to Hong Kong in the list of UK dependent territories.
3
At Hong Kong's request we have accepted the following agreements on her behalf;
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
v)
vi)
Government procurement
Standards
Customs valuation
Subsidies and countervailing duties
Import licensing
Anti-dumping
Hong Kong has expressed a wish to be closely involved with these codes and we will continue to give advice and assistance in this respect.
4
Hong Kong's imports are generally duty-free, so she did not have tariff concessions to make in the MTNs. She has expressed dissatisfaction that certain requests she made for specific tariff concessions were not met by the Community,
On the and that the MIN agreements did not cover quantitative restrictions. other hand, Hong Kong should benefit from the general reduction in tariffs (averaging 25%) to which the Community has agreed, and from the greater discipline accepted by developed countries in the codes on non-tariff matters. As a major exporter, Hong Kong's interests are clearly served by the MIN outcome, even if it has not gone as far as she would have wished in reducing barriers to her trade.
Safeguards Regotiations
Hong Kong (in the person of Hr Peter Tsao, their Geneva representative) was a leading light in pressing the developing countries case against selectivity unless it had been authoriced at some stage by the GATT Committee. Mr Tsao has now left Geneva and first contacts with his successor indicate that he is unlikely to take a front position. But the Hong Kong Government will presumably retain its general dislike of the concept. We must seek to convince them that we will acccpt some criteria as a safeguard against the use of selective action but that we must retain the ultimate right of a covereign government to act in the manner it judges boob. Me do not, of course, envisage that Hong Kong will be affected to any extent by selective controls in the MA. She in certainly not one of our mada