TNAG-0384-FCO40-430-Trade-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-EEC-1973 — Page 137

88

Mr Wilford

CONFIDENTIAL

HONG KONG AND THE COMMUNITY'S GSP

M... Wilford gave

7.

----

or se

94

this to

the buigs

in the

the al 2 has talles with the

Layla's "Governor + for the dyr.

ter than has

for the of subuessing

1. I am sorry that you have had nothing from our side of the house on this earlier in response to Mr Stuart's minute of 29

August.

2.

144·17

As I said earlier this week we have very considerable difficulty with the line proposed in the draft submission attached to Mr

Stuart's minute.

3. Of the three courses recommended in paragraph 11 of the draft submission, the exclusion of textiles from the GSP context (and

perhaps ultimately the exclusion of textiles from the Community's GSP altogether) is not likely to get us anywhere, and is open to objection. We have agreed that the DTI should continue for the

moment to attempt to get freer circulation of imported textiles in the Community in return for our adoption of the Community's GSP in this sector on 1 January. But it was specifically accepted at the meeting of the Europe Official Committee on 4 September that

these efforts could not be continued beyond the point at which it would become administratively impossible for us to adopt the Community's scheme as it stands now on 1 January: this means that we shall have to give up the struggle about the first week of November. To argue now that textiles should be removed from the Community's scheme altogether would, for the reasons given in paragraph 9 of the draft submission, be impossible (though Mr Ridley and the Textiles Division of the DTI would welcome it.)

And as the draft submission also remarks this would not have helped Hong Kong on footwear.

4.

The alternative radical solution of including Hong Kong textiles and footwear in the Community's GSP scheme would involve seeking

amendment of the terms on which we acceded to the Communities.

Under the terms of Protocol 23 of the Treaty of Accession, we have to apply the Community's GSP on 1 January 1974. The Community's GSP towards Hong Kong excludes textiles and footwear. objections which seem to me overriding. My estimate our Permanent Representation in Brussels is that we would not get the amendment. So while trying to get it might temporarily ease.

This raises

and that of

1-

CONFIDENTIAL

/our