TNAG-0298-FCO40-334-Entitlement-of-Hong-Kong-to-generalized-tariffs-preferences--1971 — Page 36

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

that are not shared with the fully independent members of the Commonwealth Preference Area. They will now have to share their existing preferential rights with all beneficiaries of the UK Generalised Preference Scheme, and therefore understandably look to compensatory preferential access to the markets of other donor markets for Commonwealth developing countries and territories.

7.

.

As the Japanese Government will have seen from the economic data already supplied by IIMG about the territories and countries concerned, their exports are unlikely to prove a burden to Japan ir included in the Generalised Preference Scheme. They do however depend upon increasing“

and diversifying their exports to improve their economic

position. To the extent that their admission to the GPS would assist them to achieve this, the benefits would ... accrue directly to the individual territories and not to the United Kingdom. This is because the dependent

territories are not subject to UK taxation, nor does UK

trade and customs legislation extend to them; in particular

they are not governed by the annual UK Finance Acts, nor by

the Customs and Excise Act, 1952, nor by the Exchange Control Act, 1947. The se territories operate their own tariffs (copies have been provided to the Japanese Embassy in London) their own Customs and their own budgets and financial reserves. To avoid burdening the Japanese Govern- ment with the relevant legislation of all UK dependent

territories, documents are attached for a typical dependent

territory in the form of the British Solomon Islands Order (Constitution) of 1970, Customs Ordinance (Chapter 78) and the Estimates for 1971. It is hoped that this material will meet the Japanese Government's requirements.

4

8. In conclusion it would be a matter of the greatest

*

concern to HMG if the se territories were to be excluded from

the Japanese scheme or from those of any other industrialised

/country,

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