INDUSTRY AND TRADE
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(seven per cent of the total), textiles (six per cent), and office machines and automatic data processing equipment (three per cent).
The direction and level of Hong Kong's export trade are very much influenced by economic conditions and commercial policies in major overseas markets. In 1982, 61 per cent of all domestic exports went to the United States and the European Economic Community. The largest market was the United States ($31,223 million or 38 per cent of the total), followed by the United Kingdom ($7,187 million or nine per cent), West Germany ($7,031 million or eight per cent) and China ($3,806 million or five per cent). Domestic exports to Japan and Australia increased to $3,167 million and $2,832 million respectively, with Japan representing four per cent and Australia three per cent of total domestic exports. Other important markets were Canada and Singapore.
Re-exports continued to increase in 1982, accounting for 35 per cent of the combined total of domestic exports and re-exports. The principal commodities re-exported were textiles ($6,431 million), electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances ($3,420 million), photographic apparatus, equipment and supplies, optical goods, watches and clocks ($3,218 million), and clothing ($3,021 million). The main countries of origin of these re-exports were China, Japan, the United States and Taiwan. The largest re-export markets were China, the United States, Indonesia and Singapore.
International Commercial Relations
Hong Kong's external commercial relations are conducted by the Trade Department within the framework of a basically free trade policy. Hong Kong practises, to the full, the rules of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Virtually the only restrictions maintained on trade are those required by international obligations. Most prominent among these are restraints on textile exports to major trading partners in Europe and North America. All these restraint arrangements were negotiated under the Arrangement Regarding International Trade in Textiles, commonly known as the Multi- Fibre Arrangement (MFA). A feature of the MFA is the Textiles Surveillance Body (TSB) which supervises its implementation. A Hong Kong representative sat on the TSB as an alternate member to the representative of the Republic of Korea in 1982.
The third term of the MFA, for four years and seven months, came into effect on January 1, 1982. It has been accepted by Hong Kong and over 40 countries, including Hong Kong's major trading partners.
Co-ordination among developing exporting members of the MFA which contributed significantly to the preservation of their interests during its renegotiation in 1981, con- tinued in 1982. At the two formal co-ordination meetings held in Geneva in April and August/September, developing exporting members arrived at a common interpretation of certain provisions of the protocol extending the MFA and exchanged views on their bilateral textile negotiations with developed importing countries. Hong Kong participated in both meetings.
Following two rounds of textile negotiations held in February and March, a bilateral agreement was concluded covering Hong Kong's exports of cotton, man-made fibre and wool textiles to the United States. The agreement has a duration of six years from January 1, 1982, and incorporates a new restraint structure.(Exports in 24 categories of textile products are subject to specific restraint while exports in all other categories, constituting one-third of Hong Kong's textile exports to the United States, have been liberalised. These latter categories have been placed under an export authorisation surveillance system operated by the Trade Department.