TNAG-0004-FCO40-40-Departmental-briefs-about-Hong-Kong-1968 — Page 186

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rapidly that the Hong Kong Government has recently been forced to

conclude an agreement to limit exports to this market for a period of

two years (the quota, however, gives Hong Kong over half of Germany's

imports of these products and about 10% of total consumption).

8.

Recently Hong Kong has been developing the production of textiles

and garments from man-made fibres as well as cloth and garments of

cotton/Synthetic mixtures. Because of our very high tariffs on

man-made fibres (even on the Commonwealth) she has not yet made much

headway with these products in the U.K. market, but sales in the U.S.,

Canada and sone countries of Western Europe are increasing.

9. Resistance to Hong Kong's developing exports of textiles and

other products is however, beginning to develop in a number of other

countries and some are beginning to take action against the Colony

contrary to their G.A.T.T. obligations. In particular a number of

countries (South Africa, Australia, Austria among others) are imposing

so-called "anti-dumping" duties on certain Hong Kong products despite

the fact that, because of its free competitive market, Hong Kong cannot

"dump". The Hong Kong Government is afraid that this sort of action

will spread. If it does it will be difficult to counter. Other

countries such as Nigeria, the Sudan and Iraq have either severely

cut back imports from Hong Kong or prohibited them altogether on the

grounds of an imbalance of trade. Protests in these cases have been

of little use.

there are others. A lot of them stem from an

There is

10. These are only some of the more important restrictions on

Hong Kong exports

exaggerated four of the threat posed by Hong Kong. There is a limit

to what a community of less than four million people can produce and

their very success contains the seeds of its own limitation.

now a shortage of skilled labour in the Colony. Wages have risen rapidly

in recent years and they are now more than twice the level of seven

or eight years ago. Some industries, such as rubber footwear and

enamelware, are becoming less competitive and even the cotton toxtile

industry is lessening its threat as the developed countries introduce

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