TNAG-0572-FCO40-705-Monitoring-of-progress-made-on-planning-paper-on-Hong-Kong-1976 — Page 67

3.

7.

In effect this means that our

labour legislation should be at least comparable to

I do not believe

that of our principal competitors.

Honourable Members would think it right that we

should aim at less. Nor could we defend a lower

target either to our own workers or to the

Governments of developed countries with whose

products ours compete. I should warn you that I

see serious risk in not achieving such comparability

and achieving it fast. Indeed it may come as a

shock to Honourable Members that some aspects of

our legislation are not already equal to that of

our Asian competitors. However fortunately this is

a field in which we have made rapid progress in the last 6 or 7 years, and I would expect this

Government to achieve its target within 5 years at

the most and perhaps less. I am satisfied that we

can do so by steps graduated so as not to affect

materially our competitive position;

but in any

case in the mood current in our main markets the

danger to our commercial prospects of failure to

make rapid progress in this field is greater than

the comparatively small implications there may be

for our competitive position.