74
201093A5:021/7
I Fletcher Esq ITP/la DTI
20 October 1993
Dean lau.
OECD TRADE COMMITTEE: HONG KONG
1.
2.
My letter of 27 July refers.
ра
United Kingdom Delegation
to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
19 rue de Franqueville
75116 Paris
Telephone: 45 24 98 28
HKB 098/3
Facsimile: 45-24 98 37
2.001 1993
Hong Kong's Ambassador to the GATT, Joseph Wong, today briefed Keith MacInnes on progress preparing the
the ground for a formal application for observer status on the Trade Committee and Trade Committee Working Party. The long and the short of it is that we expect the Hong Kong Secretary for Trade and Industry to write to the OECD Secretary General next month with an eye to the issue being on the agenda for the February meeting of the Trade Committee.
3.
Ambassador Wong has spoken personally to the Heads of Delegation of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Commission. The US has been approached at a more junior level (there being no US Ambassador in situ at the time). In addition, Deputy Secretary for Trade Regina Yip spoke to the Trade Committee representatives of Denmark, Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Norway in the margins of the Hong Kong Trade Workshop (my internal minute of 18 October not to all). Whilst some have noted the need to seek firm instruction from their capital, all have taken a positive view of Hong Kong's aspirations; and others - notably the Netherlands, US, Australia, NZ, Canada and Japan have already come out firmly in favour. As a final preparatory step Keith MacInnes will speak on behalf of Ambassador Wong to his Belgian, Greek, Italian, Portuguese and Swiss opposite numbers in the margins of a Heads of Delegation meeting Bellinglese at the end of this week.
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4. Our assessment is that this will be about as far as one can usefully go on "one-to-one" lobbying and that the important thing then will be to get the formal application in promptly whilst these approaches (and the undoubted credit which Hong Kong has gained from last week's workshop) are still fresh in everyone's mind.
5. We raised the question of Hong Kong's desire to participate in
on trade/environment which, for OECD constitutional reasons, we think might require them to be members of the Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) too. Ambassador Wong will seek clarification on the constitution from the Secretariat. But he is not in any case inclined to go for EPOC observership at this stage, preferring
/rightly