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Tuesday, October 31, 1972
Mr. Jordan said that an important feature of the agreement had been
the recognition by both sides of the fact that cotton and polyester/cotton
in other words they goods were often acceptable substitutes for each other:
tend to serve the same consumer market.
This principle had been translated into practice by combining the
restraints on polyester/cotton with those which currently apply to exports of
cotton textiles to the United Kingdom. As a result of this Hong Kong's total
quota for 1973 for restrained textiles (i.e. cotton and polyester/cotton) had
been increased to approximately 277 million square yards, with various sub-limits
on certain categories within this overall amount.
"In theory," Mr. Jordan said, "this would mean that we could ship
all 277 million square yards as either cotton or polyester/cotton in 1973.
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"However, in view of the particular difficulties of the United Kingdom
industry at the present time, and after some pretty hard bargaining in which
of course the advice of our Textiles Advisory Board was especially valuable
we agreed that we would not ship up to the limits exclusively in either cotton
or polyester/cotton.
"These limitations are expressed as sub-limits on cotton and polyester/
cotton within the aggregate 277 million square yards and as a result of their
application we can ship up to 250 million square yards of cotton and up to
90 million square yards of polyester/cotton in 1973," he said.
Mr. Jordan pointed out that 250 million square yards of cotton represented
a 50 million square yards increase on the present cotton quota limits, while
the 90 million square yards of polyester/cotton which is available, roughly
equates with Hong Kong's exports in the year ending immediately before the start
of the new restraints.
/However,