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IKK 34
PEKING TEL 61 TO HONG KONG REFERS
No
24/8
I The hats 728.8
PA
Handed
Zheng Carwen word.
Turing the past year, the Embassy hare on severi1
MIRA
}
affairs
com eiers discussed with the Ministry of Forei,
qucntions related to the movement of people fra Ching to
Hon: Ecng. Representations have also been made in London
at both official and ministerial level. We are very
grateful for the steps that the Chinese Government have
taken in response to these representations articularly
in bringing down the numbers of illegal immigrants, and
most recently in agreeing to take back groups of refugees from Vietnam who entered Hong Kong 11legall after having
been accepted into China
The Hong Kong authorities have, however, been
concerned that the rate of arrival of legal dumigrants
which up until the early part of July had steadily been
decreasing, has recently been rising again. the first
12 days of Angust the daily average was 181 compared to 159
in July and 167 in June. One particular feature that has
been noted is an increase in the number of persons arriving
with passports but without valid riass for onward
destinations This was a considerable problem towards the
end of 1978, when more than 3,000ssport holders without
onward visas vere entering Hong Kim each month but we
believed this problem had been solved when
figures
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Vdropped
74