(134392) Dd. 737115 750M 4/70 Hw.

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

Registry No.

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

DRAFT

Top Secret.

Secret.

Confidential,

Restricted. Unclassified.

PRIVACY MARKING

.In Confidence

To:-

Type 1 +

From

The Rt Hon R Wood MP

Minister of Overseas Development

Eland House

Stag Place

London S W 1

Telephone No. & Ext.

Department

Thank you for your letter of 4 January about

Hong Kong.

2. I am very sorry that you find great difficulties

From my point of view, and for the

in our proposal.

reasons which I shall explain, it is particularly

important that we should make this gesture and I

should be most grateful if you could reconsider the

matter.

3.

ng

I think I should stress immediately that in

telling me about the Japanese offer, P Y Tang, the

Chairman of the Polytechnic Planning Committee, who is

also, of course, a Member of the Executive Council,

spoke in terms which made it clear that he was not aski

us for parallel help because of our relationship with

Hong Kong but telling us of the offer in case, in our

trade interests, we would like to do something similar.

He thought we might like to see at least some of the

trainees brought up with a bias towards Briti sh

machinery.

1

4. You mentioned in your letter that one of your

main objections related to trade considerations,

The

DTI are of course responsible for straight-forward

trade promotion, eg, exhibitions and trade missions,

but it seems to me that where, as in this case,

1

other

C

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