PA
HKK 6/24
Mhiv
7/
Hong Kong Department Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
4 July, 1969
Thank you for your very full report (your letter of 12 June) on your discussions in Hong Kong with Ernst about EEC'S common commercial policy. ˆ
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These exchanges with Ernst were touched on in discussions with David Jordan in the Board of Trade on 23 June (and also, I understand, in his discussions with Sir James Marjoribanks and Freddie Jackson in Brussels last week) Jordan emphasised how useful it had been to feed in to the Commission by this means some basic facts about the French quotas on Hong Kong. It was generally agreed here that you handled Ernst very well and that there was value in maintaining this and such other informal contacts with EEC officials as you and Bob Goldsmith have established in Geneva.
11
It was of course right of Hannay to see danger in Ernst's declared intention of seeking by informal contacts an agreed position that would not prove unfavourable to Hong Kong". But we are all too old hands at the game to fall for that me; and we here knew that, following the well established precepts under which the conduct of Hong Kong's commercial relations is shared between us, you would not enter upon these talks on other than an exploratory basis and without commitment.
The point you raise in paragraph 11 of your letter and on which Freddie Jackson has touched in his letter to me of 24 June namely the timing of a formal approach to the Commission in Hong Kong's interest was not discussed with David Jordan. Our feeling is that we should await a more authoritative indication of the Community's intentions.
I am sending copies of this letter to Denzil Dunnett and Ingram in the Board of Trade; to Jackson in Brussels; and to Sellers in your London Office.
D. J. C. Jones, Esq.,
Commerce & Industries Dept.,
Hong Kong.
(W. S. Carter)
G
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