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that we will not be on a truly qual footing with our competitors until 1976. By this time orders will have been diverted for some 4 years, and new trading links established with our competitors will have been consolidated. We will thus have a very difficult job to recapture our customers after this time lapse, who will also be able to turn to alternative developed country suppliers in Europe for their needs since these too will have virtually duty free and unlimited entry into the EEC through the various trade agreements which have recently been signed.
10.
We are particularly alarmed that this discrimination against HK by the UK and EEC has already been followed by some other countries and could lead to further such discriminatory measures against HK. A very unfavourable and dangerous precedent has been set, one which could well have wider repercussions elsewhere unless quickly redressed.
11.
For our protection, Mr. Chairman, we would like to see the HK Delegation to the GATT Textile Negotiating Group Meeting putting forward, in that International Forum, that in any new Multilateral Arrangement consideration should be given to requiring that a clause be inserted to the effect that where there are quotas established and agreed, either bilaterally or multilaterally, under the terms of the Arrangement, tariff discrimination should not be permitted to be imposed since it would have the effect of imbalancing the terms of the quota restriction. The Commonwealth Preference system is to be abandoned and the preferential rates of duty to be run down over the next four years. Since this system is now accepted as being outdated, we feel Mr. Chairman, that the raw material mix should no longer be required and that representation to this effect should be pressed now by the HK Government with HMG.
12.
There is one other point of substance that we would like you to raise with HMG since it has seen fit to discriminate against HK and we feel that such discrimination is not only objectionable but unwarranted, and that unequal treatment anywhere can no longer be justified. Mr. Chairman, we think the time has come for consideration to be given to removing UK and Commonwealth Preference in HK. They are legacies of the system which the Mother country has now seen fit to abandon itself. I refer to the fact that UK and Commonwealth exports to HK of cars, tobacco, alcohol and hydro-carbon oils
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