9.
During the renovation period, the office will be temporarily moved to room 203, second floor, MKGO while the public enquiry telephone numbers (2399 2547 and 2399 2231-6) and fax number (2396 8140) will remain unchanged.
Normal service of the office will resume on February 27 (Monday).
End/Monday, February 20, 1995
"Modern mercantilism" misguided
The Director-General of Trade, Mr Tony Miller, today (Monday) hit out at what he called "modern mercantilism".
"Mercantilism and protectionism go hand in hand. Both try to tilt the playing field of international commerce. Both bring government muscle to bear in what Both cheat the consumer. Both ultimately should be purely business battles.
undermine the competitiveness of the firms they aim to assist," he said.
In a talk to the British Chamber of Commerce, entitled "Going bananas", Mr Miller used the example of a current trade dispute between Europe and the US to illustrate the lengths some governments were prepared to go to protect what were perceived to be national interest.
In this dispute, he said, the US has threatened retaliation under Section 301 of its 1988 Trade Act against the European Union (EU) banana import regime which it claims is adversely affecting US economic interests.
"I raise this case because it seems to me to be a useful illustration of 'modern mercantilism'," Mr Miller said.
"There are two sides to this coin. The first is a renewed willingness on the part of some governments to grant certain companies a national identity. The second is a perverse persistence that it is necessary to determine a single national origin for an imported product."
In the banana dispute, he noted that the US had taken up the cudgels on behalf of a US multinational firm which had invested in the distribution and marketing of bananas produced in various countries in Latin America.
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