INDUSTRY AND TRADE
aims to explore areas of common interest among group members and to strengthen the negotiating position of countries in the region in the Uruguay Round negotiations. In September, Hong Kong hosted the Eighth Regional Consultative Meeting at which participants discussed the difficult issues which had a bearing on the final package of the qutcome of the Uruguay Round.
Hong Kong's trade policies and practices were reviewed, for the first time, by the GATT Council on July 31, and August 1, 1990, under the GATT Trade Policy Review Mechanism. The mechanism, which was launched in December 1989, aims to enhance the functioning of the multilateral trading system by achieving greater transparency in the understanding of trade policies and practices of contracting parties to the GATT. During the review on Hong Kong, there was unanimous appreciation of Hong Kong's free trade policy. The chairman of the GATT Council also praised Hong Kong's open trade policy
Textiles
Bilateral agreements negotiated under the MFA govern Hong Kong's textiles exports to Austria, Canada, the European Economic Community (EEC), Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States.
The bilateral textiles agreement with Norway expired in June 1990. Consultations in March and May 1990 led to a new two-year Hong Kong/Norway Textiles Agreement (July 1, 1990 to June 30, 1992) with considerable improvement in growth and flexibility provisions. The number of categories under restraint has also been reduced from eight to seven in the first year and to five from July 1, 1991.
Four rounds of consultations between Hong Kong and the EEC were held in 1990 to address problems arising from changes of certain classification practices and also adjust- ments on textiles quotas for exports to the Federal Republic of Germany to take account of the unification of Germany with effect from October 3, 1990.
Non-textiles Issues
In 1990, no new anti-dumping action was initiated in the EEC against Hong Kong companies and the investigations in respect of the six outstanding cases were completed except the proceeding concerning small screen colour television receivers. The three cases against denim, tungsten ores and silicon metals were terminated without imposition of any anti-dumping duties. The case against photo albums was terminated after the major photo album manufacturer in Hong Kong entered into a price undertaking agreement with the EEC Commission. A provisional anti-dumping duty of 2.4 per cent was imposed as from November 14, 1990, in respect of audio cassette tapes.
In response to a petition from their knitwear manufacturers, the United States authorities initiated in 1989 an anti-dumping investigation into man-made fibre sweaters from Hong Kong. The investigation was completed in September 1990 and the United States authorities determined that man-made fibre sweaters from Hong Kong were being sold in the US at less than fair value and such imports materially injured the American industry. In most cases, an additional tariff of 5.86 per cent was imposed on imports of man-made fibre sweaters from Hong Kong.
In May 1990, the Mexican Ministry of Commerce and Industrial Development initiated an investigation in response to a petition from Mexican manufacturers alleging that Hong Kong denim was being dumped in Mexico.
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