INDUSTRY AND TRADE
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Norway's action against certain textile imports, which was introduced on January 1 1979 under Article XIX of the GATT, remained in force during the year. The action was in the form of global import quotas, but it had a discriminatory effect against Hong Kong. Following a complaint made by Hong Kong to the GATT Council in July 1979, a GATT Panel was established to investigate Norway's action. In its report submitted to the GATT Council in March 1980, the panel concluded, among other things, that Norway had failed to make its action consistent with Article XIII of the GATT by not allocating to Hong Kong an appropriate share of the so-called global quotas, such a measure constituting, prima-facie, a case of nullification or impairment of Hong Kong's rights under the GATT. Notwithstanding the GATT Council's adoption in principle of the report in June 1980 and recommendation to the Norwegian Government to make its action consistent with the GATT as soon as possible, bilateral consultations subsequently held between the two governments failed to resolve the issue. The Norwegian Government decided in the final round of consultations to terminate the consultations and continued its unilateral import action into 1981.
The Tokyo round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN), which was launched in 1973 with the object of further liberalising world trade by removing or reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers, was concluded in 1979. Over 40 countries agreed to reduce their tariffs by about one-third over a period of seven years commencing in 1980. The second stage of the reductions was implemented in 1981. These reductions are made on a most-favoured- nation basis and automatically apply to Hong Kong. The MTN also resulted in a number of agreements on various non-tariff measures, and on improving some provisions of the GATT. Hong Kong accepted six of the agreements concluded in the MTN. These are: the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the GATT (Revised Anti-dumping Code); Agreement on Interpretation and Application of Article VI, XVI and XXIII of the GATT (Code on Subsidies and Countervailing Duties); Agreement on Technical Barrier to Trade (Standards Code); Agreement on Import Licensing Procedures; Agreement on Implemen- tation of Article VII of the GATT (Customs Valuation Code) and the Agreement on Government Procurement. With the last two agreements coming into force on January 1, 1981, all of these agreements have become effective.
The second four year term of the MFA expired at the end of 1981. Intensive discussions took place during late 1980 and 1981 in Geneva under the auspices of the GATT to determine its future, with Hong Kong participating fully in the discussions. Moreover, the developing exporting members of the MFA held a series of formal meetings to co-ordinate their positions, the first of which was held in November 1980 in Bogota, Colombia. Three more meetings, attended by the Hong Kong delegation, were held in the course of 1981 in Jakarta, Hong Kong and Delhi.
Negotiations in the GATT on the future of the Agreement Regarding International Trade in Textiles (commonly referred to as the MFA) were concluded at a meeting of the Textiles Committee, which lasted from mid-November to mid-December 1981. The meeting arrived at a protocol extending the agreement for a period of four years and seven months (i.e. from January 1, 1982 to July 31, 1986).
The MFA provides the multilateral framework within which participating countries can negotiate bilateral restraint agreements governing their textile trade. Some concessions, which contain safeguards which should offer some protection in bilateral negotiations for the exporting countries, were made to secure the new MFA. The new protocol also builds in additional discipline for the invocation of restraints and preserves the original text of the MFA.