TNAG-0627-FCO40-775-Effect-of-GATT-Multi-Fibre-Arrangement-on-Hong-Kong-negotiat-1977 — Page 191

FROM THE

DIRECTOR OF COMMERCE and INDUSTRY

HONG KONG

P.Ajols

details

Dear John,

23 March 1977

14 XF2.777

LIKK 121 1616)/

The main thing I should like to discuss with you and Donald Murray is of course "the future of the MFA".

I should like to try to convince you that the line taken by Mr. Meacher in the Commons debate last month is based on unsound premises; that the MFA itself is not responsible for the difficulties he spoke about; and that therefore renewal of the MFA without modification would not be as harmful to British interests as DOI/DOT seem to think. In other words I believe that UK and Hong Kong interests could both be met without damaging either. Of course the EEC would need to make better use of the MFA in future. I am convinced that the complaints derive from a failure to use it properly and quickly enough rather than from any deficiency in the Arrangement itself.

This view is not held only in Hong Kong.

It is, I am sure, the personal view of the Director-General of the GATT. It is the view of the majority of participating countries, including the US. It is the view of the German Government that the MFA as is is an adequate

instrument and I believe that view is shared by some others in the Community.

The enclosed Briefing Paper produced by the ODI in November 1976 analysed and I think demolished (in advance) a good deal of Mr. Meacher's case.

See you

m

Friday

مسال

J.A.B. Stewart, Esq., 0.B.E., c/o Government House.

Janio

(D.H. Jordan)

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