TNAG-1155-FCO40-1435-Visits-by-Members-of-Parliament-(MPs)-to-Hong-Kong-1982 — Page 155

negotiations with the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia proved to be more problematic and were suspended after a second round on 25 September. These countries, which have been presenting a common front in the negotiations, are opposed to the anti-surge mechanism, and the "basket extractor" mechanism

for the introduction of new quotas. In addition, they would like provision to be made in the new agreements for transfers to be made between Member States individual quotas within the overall Community quota. This provision is outside the terms of the Commission's mandate. It would create great uncertainty in Member States domestic industry by failing to provide a clear indiciation of the maximum imports á Member State would have to accept.

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The ASEAN countries are a fairly typical group of medium-sized suppliers of both textiles and clothing to the UK. As the attached tables show, in 1981 Malaysia was our 11th largest low-cost suppliers (including the preferential suppliers) of textiles, with Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines in 15th, 16th, 28th and 21st place respectively. In the clothing sector, Singapore was our 8th largest low-cost supplier, with the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia in 9th, 10th, 19th and 25th place respectively. Overall, in 1981 the ASEAN countries sent us

textiles and clothing valued at £67 million.

over

This compares with a total of just £41 million of textiles and clothing sent to the UK by our largest low cost supplier, Hong Kong, and total low-cost imports of the order of £1,200 million.