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the Office of the High Commissioner and to join in the search for lasting solutions by making an increased number of resettlement places available to enable those waiting in the camps to start a new and productive life.
6. Even as the Governments were responding to the Secretary-General's appeal by increasing their contributions to UNHCR and by offering limited possibilities of resettlement for the refugees, the situation continued to deteriorate. In a letter dated 31 May 1979, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland proposed to the Secretary-General that an international conference be convened to deal with the problem. At the Tokyo Economic Summit Conference of industrialized countries, a special statement on Indo-Chinese refugees was issued on 28 June 1979. This statement confirmed the intention of the Governments represented to increase significantly their contributions to the relief and resettlement of Indo-Chinese refugees by making more funds available and by admitting more people, while taking into account existing social and economic circumstances of each of their countries. At the same time, the Heads of State and Governments requested the Secretary-General to convene a conference as soon as possible with a view to attaining concrete and positive results.
7. The twelfth Ministerial Meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations held in Bali, Indonesia, on 30 June 1979, took note of the statement issued at Tokyo and welcomed the decision of those countries to increase significantly their intake of Indo-Chinese refugees as well as their financial contributions. They also stressed the important role of processing centres as a step in the implementation of the resettlement programmes.
In this regard, they welcomed the offer of sites by the Governments of Indonesia and the Philippines for the establishment of processing centres. The Foreign Ministers supported the proposal for the convening of an international conference on Indo-Chinese refugees under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary-General. The Secretary-General also received suggestions from a number of the Governments supporting the proposal of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and calling upon the Secretary-General to take up this matter and to hold a conference on Indo-Chinese refugees under the auspices of the United Nations.
8. Intensive consultations were conducted by the Secretary-General and, at his request, by UNHCR with a large number of interested Governments to determine the most effective framework within which such a meeting could usefully be held with a view to achieving concrete results. Following these consultations, the Secretary-General informed Governments of his intention to convene a meeting at Geneva, on 20 July 1979, of Governments in a position to make a contribution to a solution of the problem. He emphasized that the meeting should concentrate on the humanitarian aspects of the problem and should produce additional support to enable UNHCR to enlarge its efforts to meet the problem. The Secretary-General proposed that Governments be represented at the ministerial
level.
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