XN000022-1995-08-29 — Page 2

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Textiles bilateral consultations with the US

A Trade Department delegation, led by Assistant Director-General of Trade, Mr Stanley Ying, has returned from consultations with the United States held in Washington DC last week.

Mr Ying said today (Tuesday) the consultations covered three main issues: firstly, the US unilateral action to impose import control on Hong Kong's textiles and clothing products; secondly, arrangements necessary for the administration of US quantitative restraints on textiles and clothing imports from Hong Kong, for notification to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) under the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC); and thirdly, the US call on Hong Kong's Category 440 imports (woven wool shirts and blouses).

He said: "On import control the US formally declined our earlier requests for the US to either revoke its decision to place Hong Kong's textiles and clothing products under import control, or at least suspend implementation until a mutually satisfactory solution is reached. We on our part reiterated our principled objections to the unilateral move, and that we would consider our way forward in accordance with our rights.

"The US agreed, however, to discuss interim arrangements with a view to minimising disruption to trade while the two sides continue to try to seek a solution. Both sides tabled their proposals for such arrangements, and there were business-like discussions on the proposals. It was agreed that the two sides will resume the discussion as soon as possible."

On whether trade had been affected by the absence of an agreement so far, Mr Ying said: "One useful result from the talks is that we managed to obtain some US data on Hong Kong imports so far this year. According to those data, so far the highest utilisation is about 82 per cent, which means that we are still some way from the possibility of an embargo."

It has been the established practice for the past three decades that Hong Kong's textiles and clothing exports to the US are subject to export control by Hong Kong, as opposed to import control by the US. One main difference between the two approaches is that under export control, Hong Kong's export data is used for quota control and accounting purposes; whereas under import control US uses its import data.