TNAG-0149-FCO40-185-Cotton-textiles-to-France-1969 — Page 36

FCO40 Hong Kong Department Records 聯邦事務部香港部檔案 All

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an addition to Celmant's draft (with which he seemed to be happy) to read as follows:

"The representative of the United Kingdom on behalf of

Hong Kong, while expressing appreciation for this offer, added the hope that those two products could be liberalised at an early date."

Further work

יוזי נייד

13. At the end of the meeting there was a long discussion on how the Group might proceed in its future work. Shih (Secretariat) pointed out that it would probably be better to take up particular items, rather than groups of items, for further more intensive discussions. The Secretariat might then look into such matters as production, consumption, costs, prices, employment and market conditions for these products. The countries maintaining restrictions on these products might also be asked to submit further relevant data en the reasons for the maintenance of the restrictions. This was generally accepted but Pradhan (India) gave a warning on the difficulty of ⚫btaining useful information

n casts and prices in view of quality differences, definition f product, etc.

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Considerable difficulty was, however, experienced in trying to draw up a list of products for priority study in this manner as developing countries were reluctant to see their own products excluded. In particular, some of them (notably the Latin Americans who were strangely silent up to that int) pressed very strongly for the inclusion of agricultural products already under study in the Agriculture Committee. In the end it was decided that the extended list of products set out at the end of paragraph 10 of the draft report (as amended) would be indicative only and that further discussion would be needed before a definitive priority list could be established. Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear that the list will include yarn, fabrics and garments of non-cotton fibres, leather and leather products and footwear made of leather.

Conclusion

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25. The main interest for Hong Kong in this meeting was, of course, the confrontation with France. go as far at this stage as we could have wished, I think that

Although it did not what was said served some purpose in that it at least put the French on warning that we are not prepared to keep silent in the GATT arcut their restrictions on Hong Kong when the proper occasion to raise them presents itself. In presenting our case I tried to be as reasonable as possible and to stick to facts and let them speak for themselves. cannot see how the 'rench can reasonably object to anything that was said, especially as I gave them a preview in advance.

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16. We must now decide how this question is to be followed up in the Industrial Products Committee on 28 April.

In my

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view at that time I might be authorised to go mere deeply

/into

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