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Mr. Milne (Commodities Department, G 65/G)
Thank you for our copy of Miss Welsh's reply to your own letter of 8 October clarifying the particular passage in the statement by the President of the Board of Trade about tariffs which had been giving trouble to Mr. P. Y. Tang.
2. It seems that it will not be necessary to say anything more to Mr. Tang so that Miss Welsh can let her anxieties rest about the confidentiality of this matter. But we can sure,
But we can assure, of course, that the Hong Kong Government would raise this same matter, at the very latest when the quotas have to be renegotiated for 1971.
3. I do not think that there is anything much to be gained from trying to persuade the Board of Trade to explain the statement any more fully. It is obvious that they do not themselves know what was meant or if they do that they have no intention of telling us so that their options are still wide open when they need to bargain with Hong Kong and the others concerned. We might well say that this is not the way in which dependent territories are usually treated but I do not think there is any- thing to be gained from that.
(H. H. Stewart) Hong Kong Department 3 November, 1969
No comments yet.
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