6. Mr Land
RECNYRD IN
ARCGISTRY No. 51
#k. Dept.
I will have a meetry?
with N Wood on thin
MINISTER OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
ELAND HOUSE, STAG PLACE
LONDON S.W.1
TELEPHONE: 01-834 2377
H.R.
HKK 9/2
My dear Tony,
4 January 1971
I promised when we met three weeks ago to look very carefully at your proposal that I should find about £400,000 from the aid programme to pay for British equipment in the projected technical institutes in Hong Kong. I have now done so and I am afraid I find great difficulties in this proposal.
We have already given a good deal of help to univer- sity and technical education in Hong Kong. We have not been running an aid programme to the Colony for several years, but we still have outstanding old commitments of £250,000 to the Chinese University for the Central Science Laboratory and £150,000 for buildings in the University. We shall shortly be honouring these commitments. We also paid out £50,000 to the Hong Kong Technical College last year. In addition to this, rather more than £500,000 have been provided for the University of Hong Kong in previous years.
There are two main snags about your latest proposal. We can only find money for Hong Kong at the expense of somebody else. The income per head in the Colony is now more than US$700; the rate of growth of the economy is very high; the reserves are increasing and there is very little public debt. I understand that Government revenue is about £170 million a year of which some £20 million is put to the reserves. It is therefore very difficult to make out a case on grounds of financial need. I know that Hong Kong tends to grumble about neglect but this is not necessarily a convincing argument for giving them official aid, especially in view of the fair amount of money going into Hong Kong via the Commonwealth Development Corporation. This counts against our aid programme.
The other main objection relates to trade considera- tions. I am certainly prepared to take them into account, but we very rarely provide money for trade promotion purposes alone. This is something which more closely concerns John Davies' department.
How much is
This?
WABLY
/I am