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Mr stepart
Mr Stewart
HONG KONG: THE FUTURE OF THE MFA
- 8 AUG 1977
HICK AKK 121 6.6/1
1. You said at our meeting this morning that Mr Murray would like consideration to be given to his writing a letter to the Governor of Hong Kong about the prospects for the bilateral negotiations in the autumn. We agreed that, as a first step, we should look again at the last letter that Mr Murray wrote to the Governor about the MFA discussions.
2. I attach a copy of Mr Murray's letter of 1 July. As you will see from paragraph 8 of his letter, Mr Murray invited the Governor to consider preparing a memorandum on Hong Kong's position prior to the renegotiation of the bilateral agreement with the Community. The Governor has not, so far as I know, reacted to this suggestion (or, indeed, communicated with us in any way over the past month about the MFA discussions). view of this and the fact that I doubt whether there is much comfort we can give Hong Kong in connection with the renegotiation of the bilateral agreement, I would advise against re-opening the correspondence with the Governor for the time being.
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3. I drew attention at your meeting to the statement by Mr Dorward, Acting Director of Commerce and Industry, in Legco on 27 July about the position reached as a result of the meetings in the GATT Textiles Committee, which were concluded on 24 July. This statement shows, in my view, that the DCI are very well informed about what has been happening. This is not surprising, of course, since Hong Kong is represented in the Textiles Committee. I make this point, however, because I do not consider that we need to feel that we are under an obligation, as we have sometimes felt that we are, to try to keep Hong Kong abreast of the MFA discussions. I believe that the Hong Kong representatives in the UK Mission in Geneva and in Brussels are better placed than we in this department to keep the Hong Kong authorities informed of what has been and is likely to remain a confusing situation.
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134
A.F. Millon
D F Milton
Hong Kong & General Department K 247
233 4381
CODE 18-77
SS 10/76
3 August 1977
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