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Implementation of the Results of the Tokyo Round
7.
Apart from customs tariff reductions, the Tokyo Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) resulted in the conclusion of a series of agreements to eliminate, reduce or bring under more effective international discipline a number of non-tariff measures affecting world trade.
8.
Hong Kong has accepted six of these agreements (or codes, as they are commonly called) through accession by the UK on its behalf. They are the Codes on Customs Valuation, Government Procurement, Import Licensing Procedures, Subsidies and Counter- vailing Duties, Technical Barriers to Trade, and Anti-Dumping Duties. In acceding to these Codes, with the exception of the Government Procurement Code, Hong Kong did not have to pay any price, either because it did not maintain any restrictions or laws and regulations in the areas concerned or because its existing laws and regulations were not in conflict with the terms of the agreements in question. In respect of the Government Procurement Code, the price for Hong Kong's entry was the Government Supplies Department, whose purchases are now subject to the terms of the Code. This price was, in any case, not substantial as our pre-Code system of procurement was more or less in line with that required by the Code.
9.
The implementation of each of these codes is supervised by its own committee of signatories. Hong Kong takes an active interest in the work of these committees, and is represented on them by applying the same convention as that used for the GATT proper. Chau, head of the Hong Kong Office, was the Vice-Chairman of two committees respectively in 1980 and 1981, and will become the Chairman of the Anti-Dumping Committee for 1983.
10.
A major issue which the MTN had failed to resolve was the question of safeguard action under the GATT. During the MTN the EEC had sought agreement on a new set of rules which would enable an importing country to apply safeguard action under Article XIX of the GATT in a selective manner against imports of particular products from particular suppliers. Since this would have rendered meaningless the GATT's most fundamental principles, ie möst-favoured-nation treatment and non-discrimination, which generally work in favour of the weaker trading partners, the EEC proposal was vigorously resisted by the LDCs. In spite of this, some LDCs were prepared to consider "selectivity" in the application of safeguard action in return for stricter discipline and sur- veillance. But the EEC insisted on changing the rules in its favour without accepting effective discipline in the application of those rules. The negotiations on safeguards therefore broke down. Several attempts have been made in the past two years or so to revive the negotiations but with no result.
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