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Hong Kong/OECD
3. We then turned to the various arrangements OECD had made over the years to promote cooperation with non-members in ways. falling short of full membership of the Organisation. The Ambassador emphasised the extreme flexibility of
of the OECD's procedures. The OECD Convention - a copy of which he gave to our visitors - only talked of full membership. Anything short of that was left to the membership to devise on a pragmatic basis. And the multiplicity of formulae used So far showed that the Organisation could be quite creative in coming up with tailor- made solutions. He then ran through some options from the recent past, stressing that these were by no means exhaustive. These included:
4.
(a) informal ad hoc meetings such as the recent OECD/DAE workshops.
(b) back-to back meetings with specific OECD Committees (viz the proposed OECD/DAE trade meeting on 18 July).
(c) involvement in Part II (voluntary) activities, either by means of association with an OECD body through a Liaison Committee (such as Mexico until recently with the Steel Committee), or by becoming a full member of a Part II committee - Mexico has recently graduated to this position.
(d) observership in one of the Part I committees Yugoslavia has recently been admitted as an observer to the Council Working Party on Shipbuilding (where Canada is also an observer, as this body has certain obligations to which not all OECD members wish to subscribe).
(e) full participation in a Part I committee. Korea (until recently only a member of a Liaison Committee with the CWP on Shipbuilding) has latterly been elevated to this status. Before becoming full members of the OECD, both Australia and Japan went through "trial periods" as members of certain OECD Committees.
(£) special status: shortly after its creation, the Organisation negotiated such a status with Yugoslavia for largely political reasons (in practice, enabling Yugoslavs to attend many though not all OECD Committees); Yugoslavia has recently applied for full membership.
The Ambassador suggested that HK/OECD contacts were still at an early stage; we needed to think imaginatively about how to add substance to HK's dealings with the OECD without stirring
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