CONFIDENTIAL
布政司署 BY BAG
香港下亞厘畢道
* OUR REF.: SCR 6/2091/55
本署檔號
* Your Ref.:
118
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
4 September 1978
J THOMPSON ESQ MBE
HONG KONG & GENERAL DEPARTMENT
F CO
Dear John,
IMMIGRATION FROM CHINA
HKK 34
41/1
TELAVLO II RIM SAYO. 51 13 SEP 1978
DESK OFFICI INDEX
PA
TRY
ction Titan
CLE
We have already reported the August statistics When Tan Kan of on immigration from China by telegram. NCNA called today I passed him full details of daily arrivals throughout the month. The total figures for the 13 columns (see the monthly table enclosed with my letter of 17 August to Kim Sullivan) were, reading from left to right: 48; 1410; 3656; 551; 5665; 0; 92; 92; 4639; 3635; 112,935; 110,829; + 8141.
2.
There
I told Tan we were disappointed that the slight drop in arrivals in the first half of August had not been maintained; and that for the first three days in September the average daily arrival rate was 200. was understandable and increasing concern in Hong Kong. We appreciated that there was probably a backlog of travel permits which had already been issued and it seemed from press reports that an effort was being made to keep under control the rate at which people crossed from Shum Chun. However, we very much hoped that there would be a
I added significant reduction in the September figures. that the numbers travelling on passports had shown a marked increase to 25.7% of all new arrivals:in 1977 only
The vast 6.9% of new arrivals travelled on passports. majority of these were people who claimed that their intended final destination was an overseas country such as the Philippines or Malaysia. However, if they arrived without a visa for their destination they had virtually no chance of obtaining one in Hong Kong. also pointed out that in August (in contrast to the preceding four months) the overall balance of movement across the border (8413) was greater than the total of new arrivals. This simply reflected the marked fluctuations in movement between Lowu and Shum Chun of travellers on Hong Kong travel papers which the figures I had already given Tan had fully documented.
I
CONFIDENTIAL
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