CONFIDENTIAL
3 On 6 November, however, in the Council of Ministers, the Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster put the Community on notice that in the context of next year's
review we intended to press "most resolutely" for the inclusion of Hong Kong's
textiles and footwear in the Community scheme from 1975 onwards. He pointed out
that whilst the arrangements agreed in 1971 may have seemed to our Community
partners not ungenerous, an important consideration was the fact that since 1971
the situation had changed to the detriment of Hong Kong in that the Philippines,
Thailand and Yugoslavia, all of them competitors of Hong Kong, had become
beneficiaries under the Community scheme in respect of cotton textiles.
present circumstances therefore it was no longer acceptable for such discrimination
to be applied against Hong Kong.
4
In
The above can be drawn upon fully in discussing this matter with the Hong
Kong authorities. They can also be assured that during the discussions within
the Community regarding the scheme for 1974 we had the interests of Hong Kong
very much in mind. Among the improvements which were secured were a number of
canon where the butoirs have been increased from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
about half these canes Hong Kong has a significant interest and should benefit
from these increase8.
In
5 We shall continue to bear Hong Kong's general trading interests very much in
mind in future reviews of the Community's GSP. At the same time it would be
over-sanguine to imagine that, given that Hong Kong is still responsible for
close to one-quarter of the total exports of manufactures and seni-manufactures
of the developing world there are good prospects of persuading partners in the
Instead, pressures Community to include all Hong Kong products in their scheme.
may build up in the Community for excluding from GSP treatment selected products
from a number of the more industrially-advanced beneficiaries.
2
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.