de ich.
THE CHARTERED BANK
HỒNG KONG
14 DÉS VOEUX ROAD, HONG KONG
TELEPHONE: 3807).
TELEGRAMS 'CHARTABA
TELEX: MKG230
Manager: P. 'A, GRAHAM
MAIN KOWLOON OFFICE
– 544 NATHAN ROAD
TELEPHONE: 84-7171
TELEGRAMS 'BANKCHARTA'
Manager: D. R. FULTON-
Associated Trustee Company in Hong Kong
FÅR EAST TRUST CORPORATIOŃ (H.K.) LTD. 4. DES VOEUX ROAD, HONG KONG
FAR EASTERN ECONOMIC RE
Liverpool Hamburg
Manchester London
Tew York!
Cyprus
1Lebanon
Japany
China!
İran
Pakistan
hrain
Pakistan!
gKong
Philippines
India
iland:
hramant
Ceylon
Malaya North Borneo Singapore
Brunei
Sarawak
Indonesia
THE CHARTERED BANK
INCORPORATED BY ROYAL CHARTER 1853
HEAD OFFICE: 38 BISHOPSGATE LONDON ECZ
with its subsidiaries and associates
THE EASTERN BANK LIMITED
THE IRANO-BRITISH BANK LTD
THE ALLAHABAD BANK LTD
HAS OVER 200 BRANCHES
IN 26 TERRITORIES
Correspondent Banks and Agents in every important financial centre throughout the world
October 31, 1963
But the offer is certainly less generous than appears at first sight. Taken to- gether, the 18 items so far agreed upon only represent some 3% of India's total exports to the E.E.C. (US$5 to $7 million a year according to the most optimistic estimates).
What is perhaps more to the point, by insisting on granting these concessions unilaterally the Six have turned down the Indian request, which had the support of the Commission, for exploratory talks on ways and means of reducing India's mounting trade deficit with the Com- munity.
As matters stand at present, therefore, the Six have agreed in principle to sus- pend their tariffs on a number of products for which India is the main supplier to the Community. The list includes: castor oil, cashew nuts, pimento, capsicum, cardamons and amons, corian- der, crystallised and preserved ginger, curry powder and paste, mango chutney, condiments, tobaccoseed oil, and bleached gum lac.
After some discussion cinna- was removed from the list and cricket bats and polo sticks added to it.
With the exception of castor oil all the tariffs will be suspended at zero; in the case of castor oil the present tariff of 8% will be suspended at 7%. All the sus- pensions are non-discriminatory and for a two-year period.
mon
come
on
National Tariffs According to official sources the sus- pensions could
into effect January 1 next at the same time as the suspensions on tea and tropical woods agreed to earlier this year. It is not clear, however, whether the national tariffs would be suspended on January 1 also.
This is because the present offer is to suspend the cominon external tariff. In the case of tea and tropical woods the six member Governments decided to align their national tariffs on the com- mon external tariff on January 1, when the latter is suspended. Unless a similar decision is taken in the case of the other products also, the national tariffs will be reduced by only 30% of the difference between them and the new Community tariffs.
are
The Six have declared that other items may be added to the above list. Discus- sions are still going on as regards hand- loom products. Though the Six prepared to suspend the tariff on this item also they had provisionally agreed to it during the British negotiations they will do so only if a satisfactory definition can be found. Fears have been expressed that in the absence of such a definition manufacturers in the Far East
Woman Chief
AFTER a woman Prime Minister (in Ceylon) news of a woman as a State Chief Minister may not be astounding, but the new lady chief executive of the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh heads the administration of the biggest State in India more populated than Thailand for example. Before the war, Uttar Pradesh had the distinction of producing the first woman State Minister in Mrs Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Prime Minister Nehru's sister.
Uttar Pradesh is the centre of Hindi fanatics but the new chief, Mrs Sucheta Kripalani, was born a Bengali and is married to a Sindhi. Sind is now a part of Pakistan.
Mrs Kripalani has another distinction that her husband
is
in
Page 271
221
Singapore industrial development stakes are also bound up with the trade unions, since Singapore unions have a tradition of mixing up politics and their agitations and disrupting work at the slightest of provocations.
NTUC is for the first time in Singapore trade union history trying hard to live down the reputation of labour disruption. Mr Devan Nair's idea is that NTUC should present itself as a responsible group Co- operating to a reasonable extent with the Government and industrialists to develop Singapore.
Singapore's industrial development pace will depend largely on the suc cess of NTUC which is winning over more and more workers to its fold,
Traveller Tales
By Mus Afir
now one of the leading anti- Nehru oppositionists the Indian Parliament. Mr Kripalani was at one time secretary and then President of the Congress and Mrs Sucheta herself was Congress Secretary. She also had an innings away from the Congress Party and while her husband stayed out she came back into the party fold.
Her election to leadership of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Legislature Party came about following the exit from office of the real party boss after Nehru's surgical operation removing six Central Ministers and six State chiefs and sending them for full-time party work, or intrigue as it now turns out to be.
Mrs Pandit was nationalist India's unofficial delegate at the San Francisco conference.
Out of Cold War
WHILE being active in domestic politics both SATU and NTUC are non-aligned in the international trade union cold war between WFTU and ICFTU. SATU, with its strength from the Chinese who form most of the labour force in Singapore, is un- der considerable Peking influence, but it has kept itself out of the com- munist WFTU.
Since the Soviet Union is the do- minant voice in WFTU, the Singa- pore Association of Trade Unions naturally is not fascinated by a WFTU tic-up in view of the Sino- Soviet ideological war.
and the trust in- dustrialists and in vestors are prepared 10 place in the assertions of the NTUC leadership.
in a way, NTUC has made a good beginning by organising separate unions for pioneer industries, and promising a five-year truce if fair wages are fixed.
I was told recently in Singapore that among new investors not play- ing the game squarely with the workers are some industrialists
having tie-ups with the Japanese. The intense emotional fury worked up against the Japanese as a result of their stubborn attitudes over a delayed demand for atonement for Japanese war-time atrocities is bad enough. The Japanese are not help- ing things by giving the impression that their investors are trying to depress the wage structure in Singapore.
Anyway, in many fields in Singapore I heard of people keen to "teach the Nips a lesson or two". (Nips is a contemptuous term for the Japanese I heard several times in Singapore, Nippon.)
an abbreviation of
In the Malaysian negotiations, Lee Kuan Yew retained the labour port- folio as a State subject. This gives him the opportunity to hand out several concessions to labour groups of his choice. And those who misbe- have will be tackled by the Federal Government whose strong-arm powers will be used on the basis of charges of trying to disrupt law and order. This gives Lee a double advantage.
Page 271
222
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.