8
Wednesday, January 7, 1976
QUESTION OF HONG KONG'S "EXCESS" TEXTILE EXPORTS
TO EEC SETTLED
The Director of Commerce and Industry, the Hon. David Jordan,
confirmed today that the question of Hong Kong's "excess" textile exports
to the European Economic Community had now been settled.
The last in a series of talks on this issue took place in the
middle of last month.
These consultations, Mr. Jordan explained to Legislative Council
today, had been sought by the EEC to eattle difficulties arising from
exports that exceeded the notional limits for 1975 set out in the agreement
between Hong Kong and the Community.
He described these limits as notional because they clearly could
not be applied in all cases.
Hong Kong and the EEC did not reach agreement until July 18, over
half-way through the year.
In some cases, where the trade had up to then been under no
restriction at all, exports had already reached or nearly reached the so-
called "limits".
"It was clearly out of the question to reduce exports to nil or
to a mere trickle until December 31. This would have been contrary to the
basic purposes of the agreement and indeed of the international arrangement
under which we negotiated", Mr. Jordan pointed out.
"So some 'excesses over these notional limits were inevitable from
The question was what if anything should be done about them,"
the start.
he said.
-
-
Mr. Jordan continued:
"We finally agreed on a number of different
ways of dealing with them: in some cases the so-called 'excesses' were not
/very large