TNAG-1318-FCO40-1722-Future-of-Hong-Kong-views-and-involvement-of-the-European-Co-1984 — Page 43

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Watches

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A long feature article appeared in NRC Handelsblad Rotterdam) on the efforts by Swiss watch manufacturers to recapture their lost markets not only with the Swatch but also with the de luxe timepieces which are gaining popularity in the US as a consequence of the strong dollar.

Pforzheimer-Zeitung, one of the most important regional papers in the German watch/clock making area, reported that the only two manufacturers of quartz watch mechanisms in Germany, Junghans and PUW, will be cooperating closely in the future on exchange of patents and know-how in the development of new quartz mechanisms.

Germany's Handelsblatt carried a lengthy article on counterfeiting in which it was mentioned that pirate Swiss watches are now also being made in Switzerland itself.

Textiles

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In a half page report in Düsseldorf's Handelsblatt on the Textile Trade Fair in Frankfurt (Interstoff), there was also an article by the President of the Federation of the German Textile Industry, Ernst-Günter Plutte, entitled "The Key to the Future is Innovation". He notes that the German textile sector's capacity to be innovative has made the necessary restructuring possible without outside support but warns that it is the purpose of trade policies to ensure that unilaterally inaccessible markets are opened and that distorted competition caused by state intervention is removed.

Several German and Dutch papers reported on the communiqué issued by COMITEXTIL (The Coordination Committee for the Textile Industries of the European Community) which demanded that a new textile agreement take the place of the MFA, denouncing the "blatant imbalance in the conditions of access to different world markets to the detriment of the EEC". In the same context, the findings of the Textiles Committee of the International Labour Office (ILO) on the redistribution of textile production throughout the world were also reported. The investigation found that EEC production has continued to decline.

Textil-Wirtschaft, Germany's textile trade magazine,

reported the following:

(2)- France's clothing exports showed a 14% increase in the first

Export success

half of 1984 whereas imports grew by only 4%. was greatest in the USA, the FRG and Switzerland.

(30) The Dutch clothing industry showed little change in 1983 over

the previous year; production as well as exports were both at the same level. Imports however are on the increase, despite stagnation of consumption.

(3) Thailand's government intends to reformulate its investment

policy for the textile industry in order to encourage clothing exports.

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