Registry No.
DRAFT SAVING DESPATCH
Type 1 +
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
To:-
Top Secret.
Hong Kong
Secret.
Confidential,
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
Coby to Mr. O. Kennis
CRE I
to Perceval
TPD
Mi Pakauban
ETD
1.
From
G F Kinnear
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
Hong Kong
During the consultations held in London in
November 1970 with you and your officials, you
proposed that the United Kingdom should urge the
EEC to exclude textiles and shoes entirely from their
offer of Generalised Preferences so that Hong Kong's
main rivals (South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) should
not obtain preferences on these items while Hong Kong
was excluded.
2.
During the discussion,the view put forward by our
side in regard to this proposal was that the United
Kingdom was in a weak position to influence the EEC
in this matter and that in any case we wished the
Community to maintain even their limited offer on
textiles which were of benefit to other Commonwealth
countries. You were unable to accept the arguments
marting the U.K. urging
put forward against the exclusion of textiles and
Effer EEC/for
footwear from the EEC/for all beneficiaries and it was
agreed to submit the matter to Ministers for a decision
3. This has now been done and Ministers have
decided that in view of the adverse affects which the
raising of this matter with the EEC might have on their
attitude towards Hong Kong it would be inadvisable to
take it up with the EEC.
(134392) Dd. 737115 750м 4/70 Hw.
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