15
CONFIDENTIAL
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16
MR K M WILFORD
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hubeussion Tel to HK f
Асе
1 Nov.
I have discussed with the Minister your minute of 16 October about aid to Hong Kong.
只
81)
Mr Wood feels that it would be very difficult to fit anything like £1m for Hong Kong into the aid framework which, as you will know, is extremely heavily pressed at present. The case is, as you say, purely a political and commercial one, and with an income per head of $1000 and vast foreign currency reserves Hong Kong has no case for aid on economic grounds. Nevertheless, if the Secretary of State attaches importance to some gesture towards Hong Kong Mr Wood would be prepared to contemplate contributing towards the cost of the Polytechnic on the following
lines:
i.
We would prefer our contribution to take the form of technical assistance, including the provision of books and equipment, as was in fact suggested by Dr Chung see paragraph 12 Mr Wood has in mind a contribution of State's meeting of the order of £m which would be spread over two to
of the Secretary
ii.
three years.
As you know, Mr Wood was preseed very hard by both
Mr Royle and DTI Ministers to make a contribution to the new technical institutes and in view of that pressure agreed to provide up to £400,000. It now seems however that these institutes are not to be built for a few
years and Mr Wood therefore feels that it should be made clear that the expenditure for the Polytechnic would need to be disbursed before the money for the institutes was spent so that we would not have to be paying for both projects at the same time.
I think that this should enable the Secretary of State or Mr Royle to respond in a general way as you suggest but I am sure you will agree that it is important that we should not leave any misunderstanding as to the scale of our contribution. If the Hong Kong Government accept the offer the matter will
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