CONFIDENTIAL
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NOTE OF A MEETING WITH THE HONG KONG DIRECTOR OF MARINE IN SUNLEY HOUSE ON 29 AUGUST AT 3 PM
1. The meeting had been arranged in order to discuss with Mr Fletcher, the Hong Kong Director of Marine, the arrangements for the proposed new Hong Kong register of ships. Those present from Marine Division were Mr Archer (in the chair), Mr Manson, Mr Madigan, Mr Parker and Mr Hunt.
GENERAL
2. It was agreed that the aim of the new arrangements would bo to attract tonnage onto the Hong Kong register by making more flexible provisions for accelerated approval of equipment and crews from sources used by Hong Kong shipowners without any lowering of the standards at present required. The present discussions would ain to draw up draft heads of agreement on the broad form which these arrangements would take and a study team of UK surveyors led by a Deputy Chief Surveyor would go to Hong Kong in the autumn in order to work out the detailed criteria for their | administration. This team would report back to the UK after
perhaps two months and, if agreement was reached a group of five or six UK surveyors led by the same surveyor at Deputy Chief level would go to Hong Kong on secondment. It was envisaged that this group would stay for two or three years before being replaced by a similar group. There could also be a parallel secondment of Hong Kong surveyors to the UK if this was desired,
NATIONALITY REQUIREMENT FOR MASTERS
3.
The Hong Kong Government accepted with disappointment that the UK still felt obliged to insist on the British Nationality requirement for Masters. They hoped for a review of this position in view of the UK's impending discussions with European countries on the reciprocal recognition of certificates of competency, It was explained that these were likely to be a series of bilateral discussions and not in the EEC and in any case were unlikely to produce much relaxation in the case of Masters, Our opposite numbers in Europe were restrictive in this respect themselves, and the UK Ministry of Defence were unlikely for security reasons to allow the UK to dispense with the requirement. It was, however, agreed that if the climate did change ships on the Hong Kong register would be able to take advantage of any relaxation in the same way as UK ships.
4. MP Plotcher explained that it was the British Nationality requirements which would in practice dictate the size of the register: Hong Kong shipowners would only register that rusber of ships which they could be sure of being able to man at any time, so all depended on the supply of British Masters. Y K 700 could at present call on the services of 30-40 at any given time, which implied a figure of about 50 for all Hong Song shipowners. This would severely restrict the number of ships which could be registered.
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