TNAG-0298-FCO40-334-Entitlement-of-Hong-Kong-to-generalized-tariffs-preferences--1971 — Page 96

CONFIDENTIAL

RECORD OF A MEETING BETWEEN MR JRA BOTTOMLEY, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY, FCO AND MR TANIKAWA, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, MINISTRY OF

FINANCE, ON 29 JANUARY

Present:

Mr Bottomley

Mr Wakefield

Mr Whitehead

Mr Tanikawa

Mr Hirai

Mr Nishizawa

1.

Mr. Bottomley said that he had asked to see Mr. Tanikawa for a few moments because of the importance which we attached to a reduction of the Japanese tariff on imports of Scotch whisky.

We were

grateful for the liberalisation of imports of Scotch as from the beginning of this year but we thought that it would be "logical" also to reduce the tariff. Mr. Tanikawa said that, when Mr. Heath had raised this subject with the Japanese Prime Minister in New York last year, Mr. Sato had replied that liberalisation of Scotch should be possible but a reduction in the tariff would be difficult.

As a

result, liberalisation had been brought forward but the Japanese Government would like to make a decision on the tariff problems after seeing the effect of liberalisation. Mr. Bottomley replied that he hoped that a decision could be taken on this matter as quickly as possible. This was one of only 3 or 4 items still remaining in the

Mr. way of an overall trade settlement between Britain and Japan. Tanikawa ondered how quickly Britain wanted a reduction to be made; was 2 or 3 years a possible time scale? Mr. Wakefield said that we considered the high tariff on Scotch to be discriminatory, given the much lower tariffs on bourbon and rye. We thought this situation should be rectified as quickly as possible. Mr. Tanikawa denied that the tariff on Scotch was discriminatory. He was not prepared to accept that Scotch and bourbon were the same drink. bourbon manufacturers in Japan, and the Japanese had little taste for

Mr. Bottomley suggested that Japanese producers had little to fear from a reduction in the tariff. The amount of Scotch drunk by Japanese was very little compared to the overall whisky consumption in Japan and Japanese producers would clearly continue to have almost the entire market to themselves. Moreover, Japan was a strong industrial country and it was inappropriate that she should have such a high and artificial protection for one industry. Mr. Tanikawa said

/he

it.

There were no

CONFIDENTIAL