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Our reference: 1/13
Your reference:
Miss A Buckey
0 x 2
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION IN HONG KONG
7th Floor, Shell House, Queen's Road, Central, HONG KONG Mail Address: P.O. Box No. 528, Hong Kong
Department of Trade & Industry
1 Victoria Street
London SW1H OET
Dews Mary.
HONG KONG BUJGAT 1973/74
Cable Address: "Uktrade Hongkong"
Telephone- 230176
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY No. 51
14 MAR 1974
HKK 5/20.
1 March 1974
See
живильный
фильм
fixt
1. In my Creda 10 I promised to send a further telex drawing attention to any par- ticular points of policy in the Budget likely to affect our trade or comercial relations with Hong Kong. On reflection I think a letter would suite the purpose better and this is it.
2. You will already have received my Creda 12 giving press reactions and I am sending to you and the other recipients of this letter, in the same bag as this, a selection of the main press comments. I will send you any others that appear, eg in the weeklies, as they come out.
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3. I am also sending to you under separate cover, which should arrive at about the same time as this, a set of the documents published in connection with the Budget. As you will see, these are most informative and very useful source of reference material on the economy generally. There is no doubt about it that in the past two years under Philip Haddon-Cave and with the assistance of the additional economic advisers seconded from Whitehall to help the strengthened Economic Branch the amount of statistical material about the economy produced at the time of the budget (and for that matter increasingly duringthe year) has vastly improved. The present set of documents are indeed a very useful source of information for continuing reference. In the comments that I make below about the Budget I take the background documents as read (or at least looked at) and shall therefore not attempt any analysis
of them.
ip.
General Comment
S
The text of the Budget statement itself is one of the set of documents but for easy reference I have separated it from them to enclose it with this letter.
As you will see, it is a lengthy exposition - indeed it took Philip Haddon-Cave some 32 hours to deliver (which I fear means that he failed in one of his first objectives, ie to prevent one of the more somnolent members of the LEGCO from falling asleep as he has done fairly persistently over the years after the first hour and a half). you will see, it is a very closely argued presentation which has drawn forth the accolade from one financial journalist that it is technically brilliant and from one of the barkers that it is a masterly presentation. I would not take issue with either com- ment but I think it is fair to add too the comment of one of the louding members of EXCO who said that, as usual, the Financial Secretary had blinded everybody wit.. science. Cortuinly it is quite an intellectual task to pick ones way through the figures that tumble through it - it is a sort of statistical juggling fout. that I live been left at the end wondering whether in the process Philip Laddon-C.1 V mijit not have partly blinded himself. The main new feature of the precontation 1 his attempt to forecast both expenditure and revenue for the next three, wild un limited scale, the next ten years. As he says himself in the speech, tilis in wa
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Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omi sions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms, companies, or individuais miatione,
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