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Our Ref (57) IMMOR 2/1341 Your Ref K 516/Gr.9
Dr H J Dietrich Consul General of
The Federal Republic of Germany
German Consulate General Realty Building 12/F
71 Des Voeux Road Central Hong Kong
Dear Dr. Dietrich,
2 January 1979
HK British passport holders visiting
the PR G
Thank you for your letter of 12 December 1978. Despite the objections you put forward, I still think it would be very worthwhile to try to solve this problem, because of the very good relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and Hong Kong and the great amount of business that is done between the two places.
The German Government's unfavourable response is based on an alleged distinction made in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 between "proper British subjects and citizens of British overseas territories and their respective rights of entry into the United Kingdom". This appears to be a misunderstanding. The distinction referred to applies only to applicants for residence in the U.K. There is no discrimination against holders of Hong Kong British passports applying to visit the U.K. The entry certificate facility is entirely voluntary, to enable an applicant to establish his visitor status more easily. The reason for having this facility is that the significance of visitor status is greater under U.K. laws than in Germany. In the U.K., unlike in Germany, a visitor who overstays can in time acquire residential status. Consequently immigration officers have to be particularly careful about "approving the entry of visitors and much time can be saved by having a previously issued entry certificate. Despite this, genuine visitors have no real problem in obtaining entry to the U.K. without an entry certificate although processing at immigration controls may sometimes take longer.
The German Government would apparently be inclined to change its policy in favour of Hong Kong British passport holders if the British Government guaranteed to admit them to the nited Kingdom whenever their deportation should become necessary (which, to the best of my knowledge, has never ahappened). This again seems to be based on a misunderstanding. There seems to be no reason why the Hong Kong Government's written guarantee of 10 December 1977 to accept deportees back into Hong Kong (which, for passport purposes, constitutes part
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