The Hon Sir Yuet Keung Kan CBE JP
UMELCO Office
HONG KONG
30
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
17 June 1976
A.
NEXT
Coned IHILL/02Y
Dear Sir Y.K.
HONG KONG AND THE CPA
1.
2.
I very much enjoyed our talk last week.
When you called on the Permanent Under Secretary you expressed your regret that Hong Kong had not been invited to meetings of the I Commonwealth Parliamentary Association for the past two years.
I assume you think there may be some misunderstanding about this. were referring to the visits to this country which the United Kingdom Branch of the CPA arranges each year for members of other branches of the Association. Hong Kong was not invited to send anyone in 1975 but that was because you had had two visitors the previous year. (There are 100 overseas branches of the CPA and since it is possible to invite about twenty-five persons only each year the UK Branch obviously have to try to give everyone a chance.) There is not going to be a visit this year since the CPA is organis- ing a Speakers Conference instead, an occasion at which only independent members of the Commonwealth are invited to be present. I understand that the UK Branch may find it possible to invite Hong Kong to send someone on next year's visit to this country but they cannot be quite sure at this stage.
3. I hope that what I have said meets the point you had in mind. At the same time, like you, I am anxious to maintain a steady flow of visitors between Hong Kong and the UK. Clearly there are ìimits to what the CPA can do but there are other ways in which we can arrange for visits to the UK and we shall continue to take every opportunity to promote these.
Yours sincerely
Alish Cortage.
HA H Cortazzi