1
while he had been the Minister responsible
in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but
implied that otherwise few people took much
interest in Hong Kong. Mr. Royle asserted
that Hong Kong,had) in fact many friends in
out this country and pointed to the considerable
number of very important visitors to Hong
Kong in the last few years. Hong Kong's
intelligent policy of cultivating such
id
people had pade dividends and there were
now many people in the House of Commons and
Whitehall who could be counted as friends
of llong Kong.
STERLING
3. Mr Woo said that, in their sterling guarantee
they needed more room for manoeuvre. It was not
sufficient to be able to diversify out of sterling
only 11% of their reserves. Ideally they would like
the figure to be 50%. In addition, it would be much
better if the guarantee could be expressed in Hong
Kong dollars, rather than US dollars, but he feared
that this might cause the Treasury difficulty.
Er Royle agreed that this might be difficult for the
Treasury. However the Governor was at present
discussing the whole issue with the Treasury, and
Mr Haddon-Cave would be able to have talks with the
Chancellor and his officials in Nairobi and Dar-es-
4
Salam. The present arrangement was of course an
extension of the existing agreement. He realised
that the agreement between Hong Kong and their banks
2
/was
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