TNAG-0142-FCO40-178-Long-term-policy-on-International-trade-in-textiles-1969 — Page 125

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(ii) International agreement on a strictly defined regimen

within the framework of GATT (amending or reinforcing the present "escape mechanism" in Article XIX) for the restriction of imports generally in circumstances of

serious injury to domestic "producers"

4.

Hong Kong would welcome a more liberal Cotton Textiles Agreement or similar arrangement, but they do not see how their interests could be served by a decision to dispense with it altogether unless and until it is seen to be practicable to obtain international agreement to replace it by same other arrangement offering real safeguards against destructive and disorderly protectionism. The paper suggests that a GATT Working Party could provide such a solution (although a number of reasons are given why this objective may prove impracticable) For the following reasons, however, Hong Kong considers that there are more than equal odds against the Working Party succeeding and, furthermore, that any such initiative could well

lead to a more protectionist definition of the GATT escape

mechanism:-

(1) The problems faced by importing countries in the textile field are those of rapidly increasing imports from a few sources only (the low-cost producers). The existing GATT escape mechanism (Article X1X) has, under established practice, been regarded as providing only for the impositi by importing countries of non-disexininatory resrictions

against all sources of imports. Its inadequacy in this

respect was demonstrated in the consulations leading up to

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