TNAG-0763-FCO40-967-Effect-of-GATT-Multi-Fibre-Arrangement-(MFA)-on-Hong-Kong-ex-1978 — Page 152

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United Kingdom Mission 37-39 rue de Vermont 1211 Geneva 20

Telex 22956

Telegrams Prodrome Geneva

Telephone 34 38 00 33 23 85

Miss E Harding CRE1

Department of Trade

1 Victoria Street LONDON SW1

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DECK OFFICER

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14 September 1978

Dear Eileen

HONG KONG, THE GATT, NORWAY AND TEXTILES

1. I gather from Peter Wise, who accompanied Bill Dorward at the resumed textile consultations in Oslo earlier this month,that the result was renewed deadlock. Apparently our Hong Kong colleagues were disappointed to find that they had to deal with the amiable but confused (or, if not, confusing) Mr Kvamme who used, to the dismay of the other Nordics, to sit on the TSB. But I am not sure that they attributed the renewed breakdown to any personal factors.

2. My understanding is that the consequence is likely to be that Hong Kong will repair back - for the fourth consecutive time - to the GATT Council, next expected to meet in the latter part of October. You may remember that back in June our Hong Kong friends at this end dissuaded their colleagues and superiors in Hong Kong from being excessively specific as to the violations of GATT which were allegedly implicit in the Norwegian action (Hong Kong had wanted to cite Articles I, XI and XIII. The Article XIX road having now been pursued as far as it reasonably can, it seems likely that Hong Kong will now open up the Article XIII front. They have already consulted the GATT Secretariat about this and have apparently been told that it should be interesting because it has never been done before.

3. I report the fore-going simply in order to bring the affair up-to-date on the basis of the limited information we have. For. a change I am not going to suggest that there is anything we should either be doing or refraining from doing, even though I suspect that the discussion will again rapidly turn into another argument about selectivity. But we shall need a line to take in due course.

ccs:

F W Willis Esq RJT McLaren Esq J A Robson Esq P Roberts Esq Miss L Lowne

EID(E), FCO

Yours.

Kévin

K F X Burns

HK and GD Division, FCO

OSLO

UKREP BRUSSELS

DOI

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