3
world trade in textile products".
But instead things took
a turn for the worse as far as the UK was concerned. It is
now history that when the present HK/EEC Textiles Agreement
was concluded in 1975 we had to accept annual growth rates
for the UK market in 7 of the most popular categories under
restraint at 0.5% only and for all restrained categories at
about 2%.
8
bunden Sharing formote
up to 15020 in до Omy EEC
Contnig
Against such a history and these extremely low growth
rates, I need not tell you that it is the Hong Kong industry's
firm belief that any difficulties which the UK industry may
have experienced and may be undergoing cannot be attributed to
Hong Kong. And in this respect we have noted recently the
increasingly successful performance of major UK textiles firms
at a time when our own exports to this country have been in
sharp decline. In spite of this, however, as far as we are
aware it is H.M. Government's stated policy in Parliament to
seek modifications to the MFA which if adopted would have serious
consequences damaging to Hong Kong's interests.
Our concern
became even greater when we learnt that some of these policies
had gained wide support within the EEC and might in fact be
adopted to Hong Kong's greater detriment.
9
I need not go into detailed arguments of why we think
policies such as "globalisation" will not help the UK industry.
I need only briefly say that if such global quotas are applied
only to low-cost suppliers, the UK industry will not obtain the
protection that it is seeking, because about 60% by value of the
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