TNAG-0151-FCO40-187-Exports-of-cotton-textiles-to-Canada-1969 — Page 75

RESTRICTED

TRICTE

HONG KONG TEXTILES

Record of a Meeting held at the Department of Finance

Ottawa

on 27 June 1969 `

sofie

PRESENT:

Mr. Gorse Howarth

Mr. J. Clarke

Mr. M. McKillop

Mr. D. Jordan

Mr. J.R.5, Guinness

meeting:-

Director,

International Economic Relations

and Trade Policy Division, (IERTPD)

IERTPD

IERTPD

Director,

Trade and Commerco,

Hong Kong

First Secratary (Economic),

British High Commission, Ottawa

The following are the main points covered during the

(1) Statistics

Mr. Jordan said that his objective was to obtain as full a statistical picture of the Canadian shirt scene as possible. In addition to the figures provided by the Department of Finance in response to the Hong Kong Government's request, which only covered woven shirts, he asked for statistics on knit shirts, for which Hong Kong officials had unfortunately omitted to ask the Canadians. Mr. Howarth agreed to providę.what figures were available, but warned that they would be much sketchier than the figures provided for woyon shirts. He questioned whether statistics for knit shirts were relevant, as, with few exceptions, knit shirts were made by different firms in different factories by different employees from woven shirts. What the Canadian Government was worried about particularly at the moment was disruption in the woven shirt side of the industry. Mr. Jordan did not agree that statistics on knit shirts were necessarily irrelevant. Comparison of the statistics on production of and overall demand for the two types of shirts might show, for example, that there had been a genoral swing in public demand from one type of shirt to the other. lie went on to say that the figures provided by the Department of Finance clearly indicated that it was other countries, *.$. Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, whose exports of shirts to Canada in 1968 had caused the trouble and not Hong Kong exports. Mr. llowarth agreed.

(ii) Similarity of polyester/polynosic to polyester/cotton

shirts

Mr. Howarth said that in the Canadian Government's view, the two types of shirt wore very similar. To underline his argument he produced samples of the two types of shirt. Mr. Jordan said that he had not consulted manu- facturers in Hong Kong as to the similarity and

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.../dissimilarity

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