(iii) that items of safety equipment in ships should
be approved by Hong Kong marine surveyors
rather than, as now happens, by the UK.
4.
The Hong Kong Government's proposals were similar
to (i) and (iii) but on (ii) they took the view that the
master should continue to be British and that foreign
officers would be accepted in the other positions only
if they possessed certificates of competency agreed with
the DTI as equivalent to British certificates.
5. In the case of (iii) (approval of safety equipment)
we propose to enter into discussions with the Hong Kong
Government with a view to agreeing that in fields where
Hong Kong is equipped to do so it should be empowered to
accept equipment as satisfying regulations for UK ships;
this will take some time but we will move as quickly as
circumstances permit.
6. The manning and registration proposals, however,
present much more of a problem and there are the
following substantial arguments against moving as far
as suggested even by the Hong Kong Government:
(i)
At present most Commonwealth Governments accept
one another's certificates: if Hong Kong were
formally to accept foreign certificates this
would undermine the system, even if it could
be accommodated within the existing Commonwealth
Shipping Agreement, which requires members'
registration requirements to be similar.
/(ii) If