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Restriction (Amendment) Act 1917 will be repealed.
The DTI will be consulting Commonwealth Governments
and certain dependent territories (including Hong
Kong of course) giving details of their proposals -
under the 1970 Act.
The United Kingdom already use Classification
Society surveyors for safety equipment surveys of
ships building in Japan (paragraph 6 above). The question of establishing a Hong Kong "flag"
raises wide issues although there would seem to be
no reason why Hong Kong should not establish an
independent Marine Register if this was thought to be
in the interests of the United Kingdom and/or Hong
Kong.
Mr Pao has remarked more than once that the
registration of his ships in Hong Kong would bring
considerable additional revenue to the Colony.
Our information is that the registration fees in
Hong Kong are currently about HK $100 for every 500
tons of shipping; this means that Mr Pao's
7,000,000 tons of shipping would represent only a
one-time payment of HK $1.4 million or £98,000.
This assumes of course that Mr Pao's ships would be
operating at ports other than Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Dept.
4. 1971
15 Sept.
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