TNAG-0386-FCO40-432-Exports-of-non-cotton-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-the-EEC-1973 — Page 85

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

D C Jones Esq

Deputy Economic Secretary

HONG KONG

Telephone 01-

uf

PA

이프

Your reference

Our reference

НКК 6/6

Date

30 March 1973

45)

1.

Dear Dencil,

I wonder whether you have been able to make any headway towards a Hong Kong textile offer to Benelux on the lines which we discussed when you were here?

2.

As you will know from UKREP Brussels telegram No 1477, the Textile Working Group discussions have now been postponed until 10 April. But you will also know from UKREP Brussels 1510, which does not seem to have been drafted by our textile people, that the heat is still on; and I came back from four days away last week to find that the idea of community quotas (albeit fixed at a high level) was being quite seriously considered.

3. I am now about to take another week's leave, and I am a bit concerned that if no offer emerges from your side, the meeting on 10 April may go wrong. As you know the DTI were careful when you were here not to guarantee that a unilateral offer to Benelux would solve all your problems. But it now seems to be agreed by

all concerned that it would make it tactically a great deal easier for them to play our hand.

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4. We are of course new boys at the Community game, and I just do not know what chances we have by sitting tight of compelling the other members to accept what we consider to be a fair solution. But there will have to be an agreement of some kind at some stage, and we can by no means be sure that by taking the dispute to the political level we shall be any more successful. In any case, we have said before, I am sure that it will be easier to prevent everybody from being unreasonable if their reasonable demands can be met in advance. Your people accepted this in relation to Germany, and it does seem certain that if it had not been for your unilateral gesture to them we would by now have been in a most difficult position. Benelux now seems to be the crunch. I suppose the cynics would say "who next?". But as I understand it, none of the others have the ghost of a case and most of them are already restricting anyway. The danger is that they would take advantage of a community tidal wave to become even more restrictive.

CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL

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