18
Q.
Mr Sandelson
con-
15. I would like to add my gratulations to what has been said for what would seem to be an agreement which none of us round this table had thought possible from the talks we had over there. I hope the agreement does go through as the Minister is so clearly
EFORE THE EXxpenditure COMMITTEE
RODGERS, MP, and
ANDREW
[Continued
hoping. What would the Minister con- sider, in bis own words, to be the philosophy behind British retention of military interest in Hong Kong at all? A(Rt Hon William Rodgers.) My "philosophy I think would be that at the moment there are three parties to an unarticulated understanding. One is London, another is Peking and the third is Hong Kong, and the unarticulated understanding is that the status quo should remain * * because it is of mutual convenience. In a situation of this kind, if some part of the status quo is unreasonable it will upset the other parties and they may feel it is necessary to look at the situation in a new light,
Chairman.] We do not want the Minister to go into too much detail. Are there any more questions of major Then it is for me to thank moment? you very much for coming. We think I you have a very good agreement. hope it goes well, and I hope that if they are paying a major part of the bill they will not try to demand too much.
¿
78. As I understand it, it was really an inlet for foreign exchange to go into China?--I think that would be right. but if you want to go into any detail on that perhaps I could ask Mr O'Keeffe to speak. He is the Head of the Hong Kong Department.
Mr Roper
Q 79. As well as being a source of help-
ing with the balance of payments in China it is also a considerable balance of payments advantage to the United Kingdom. Are you able to give us any estimates of what effect Hong Kong has on the United Kingdom balance of payments?- (Mr O'Keeffe.)A.Strictly speaking the answer to that must be no, because of the way in which the invis- able account is made up. It does not distinguish between territories, and there- fore from a statistical point of view it would be impossible to give an estimate to any degree of accuracy. What one can say is that necessarily with British banks, insurance companies, shipping concerns and similar companies present in Hong Kong there is a considerable return on the balance of payments account which may run into some hun-
dreds of millions of pounds, perhaps £200 million or £300 million.*
Q80. It was put to us that the fact that
Hong Kong is the second largest British airport there is considerable value in negotiating flying rights for British Air- ways and other British lines, as we can trade these off against landing rights else- where in the world. Could you com- ment on that? That is indeed the
case.
NBC Af 1975 prices (2) Double for 1980 prices at
least.
(3) This fig me
seems to be on the low side
anyway, wwę,