Registry No.
addendum to US Trade Policy
Brief for Mr Rippon
DRAFT
Type 1 +
From
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
To:-
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
UNCTAD GENERALISED, PREFERENCE SCHEME AND HONG KONG
9.
E
At the Brussels Ministerial meeting of 2 February,
Mr Rippon welcomed the EEC decision on Hong Kong, and
as recorded in Codel to FCO telno 80, undertook that we "would do our utmost by the diplomatic channel to
ensure that the other major donors under the general-
ised preference scheme would also include Hong Kong so
that there would thus be a reasonable sharing of the
burden.' He repeated this undertaking, with specific reference to the US (and Japan) in the House of Commons
on 4 February.
10. If Mr Rippon judges the circumstances to be pro-
pitious, he may therefore wish to press Hong Kong's
claim to beneficiary status in the American preference
scheme. In this case, as the US are unlikely to show
great enthusiasm for lightening any EEC burdens, it
would be more advantageous to base Hong Kong's claim on
its merits as we have done in numerous oral and written
T
approaches to the State Department.
11. Our latest information is that the Americans are
continuing to drag their feet on the matter, and await-
ing the Japanese decision. We have good grounds to
hope that this will be favourable, (but not necessarily prompt) though with a special Hong Kong exceptions list
probably more restrictive than the EEC's.
12. Mr Rippon might therefore prefer to approach the
-
1 CONFIDENTIAL
(134392) Dd. 737115 750м 4/70 Hw.
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.