TNAG-0938-FCO40-1157-Visit-of-John-Nott--Secretary-of-State-for-Trade--to-Hong-Ko-1980 — Page 194

اعد البيا يد على الله

But you are in that respect nearly alone in the developing

world. Most other developing countries, even those at an

advanced stage of industrial development, maintain a great

panoply of prohibitive tariffs and of quantitative restrictions

< so severe as to come close to import prohibition. That is not

sensible for the countries concerned. Once industrial development

has reached a take off point, massive protection is only harmful

for further advance. And it is not acceptable to us. The total

inequality of trading opportunities involved would not be equitable under any circumstances and becomes all the less acceptable with the lessening prosperity of the developing

world. We can still accept in the 1980s an advantage for

developing countries. What we cannot accept, especially for the more industrialised among them, is that we have to give

everything and they nothing. We are entitled to ask, and we do ask, these countries for increasing reciprocity, for a recog-

nition of their responsibilities as well as rights. We have to ask the strong countries to recognise that they do not need and cannot expect, an indefinite continuation of the preferential advantages in the EEC market which I hope we can continue to give to the less well off countries in the developing world.

18 Finally let me say of my visit here to Hong Kong that I have been greatly encouraged as I have been on earlier visits at what I have seen. There are of course profound differences between the social and industrial structure of Hong Kong and

that in the United Kingdom and other countries. Yet I cannot help feeling that Hong Kong is in many ways a model to us all. It has highly competitive industries. The products of its inventiveness, skill, design, dedication to work, are supplied all over the world. It maintains a totally liberal import policy.

You invest abroad. You accept investment. And it is not as if

Hong Kong is isolated from the world's problems free to pursue

industrial success without attention to other considerations. You

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