CONFIDENTIAL
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS'S VISIT TO HONG KONG: 11-17 JANUARY
BRIEF NO. 18: AID
1.
Disbursements on technical assistance to Hong Kong over the past
three years have been as follows:
1971/72
1972/73
1973/74
£84,000
£85,700
£36,800
It is expected that expenditure in 1974/75 will amount to approximately £38,000, almost all of which will be spent on the provision of training in the United Kingdom; this follows the pattern of expenditure in previous years.
2.
Apart from a modest annual training programme, no other forms of technical assistance are made available to Hong Kong in view of their ability and willingness to pay for manpower expertise, equipment etc themselves. However, in 1971 and 1972 it was agreed between the FCO and ODM at Ministerial level, to make a capital aid grant of £500,000 for books and equipment for Hong Kong Polytechnic as well as a grant of $400,000 for British equipment for four new technical institutes. It has now been agreed in the ODM that it would be appropriate to provide both grants from technical assistance funds. The provision of aid for the Polytechnic was announced publicly in November 1972 during a Ministerial visit to Hong Kong.
3.
The reasons for offering this aid were both political and commercial and were basically as follows:-
(a)
in the months leading up to this announcement of aid we were going through a particularly difficult time in our relations with Hong Kong. The Governor had advised that Hong Kong had a political need for outward and visible signs of a special and beneficial relationship with the United Kingdom.
It was recognised that carefully selected aid could meet
this need:
/(b)
there was