XN000022-1981-01-22 — Page 13

3.

The outcome of the negotiations for renewal of the Multi-Fibre

Arrangements and the related bi-laterals are obviously of the greatest

concern to all of us. At present we are waiting for the demandeurs

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Meanwhile

notably the EEC and the US to show their hands. They in their tum have

been delayed by the coincidence of change of Presidency in America and

change of Presidency and Membership of the Commission of the BC.

I think we have done and are doing all we possibly can to show up the

fallacies in the arguments used to support the asrangements forced on us

in 1977 and to demonstrate how threadbare they appear in the light of

subsequent experience. The major cause of reduced employment in the textile

industries of some of the larger developed countries is not imports but

their own increased productivity, as so clearly pointed in that excellent

publication The MFA: Myths, Faots and Application, prepared by the Hong

Kong Textile and Clothing Industries Joint Conference. Moreover to the

extent that it is due to importa and to some extent it certainly is, the

oulprita

wants

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P

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if that is the right word for someone supplying what the public

the cuplprits are other developed and unrestricted countries,

rather than developing countries in general, or Hong Kong in particular.

Again the assertion that if we were made to hold back it would leave room

for deserving new producers in developing countries has been proved to be

as wide of the mark as we said at the time. However whatever the logic of

our case, it is inevitable that developed governments will be subject to

political pressures at the time of the negotiations. So it would be helpful

to us, when the negotiations pick up in the second half of the year, if they

did so against a background of some economic revival. hile prospecte in

the UK may not be bright, there is a body of opinion that economic activitğzin

the rest of Europe may improve in the second half of this year. In the American

market, the new Presidency makes forecasting difficult for the time being,

and we can only wait and see whether that immensely strong economy that has

recently proved so volatile will now receive the psychological assurance it

needs and regains

/a firmer

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