M Bremridge said that the Hong Kong Government was very pleased
with the success of British companies in securing the Castle Peak
contract. He wanted to do all he could to increase HK-UK economic
involvement. There had been too much emphasis on the relationship
with China. He hoped that British firms would go on to build the
proposed nuclear power station, should it be decided to proceed with
the project.
He also referred to the Multi-Fibre Arrangements. He expected
negotiations on the renewal of these to be difficult, although he
suspected that the subsequent bilateral negotiation on textile quotas
would cause even more problems. What concerned the Hong Kong
Government above all, however, was the huge increase in textile exports
by the US.
The Financial Secretary said that the UK textile industry
was going through a very difficult period at present and the increased
competition from the US had not made things easier. Ready access to
cheap energy by US textilefirms was clearly at the heart of the
problem, and the Government had taken the issue up with the Americans
He
The Financial Secretary went on to ask Mr Bremridge for his views on
China. Mr Bremridge said that Deng Hsiao Ping was moving China away from the highly centralised communism of the Mao Tse Tung years. Indeed, he detected signs of an upsurge of capitalism in China.
emphasised, however, that it was a mistake to view China as a
monolith. Canton, for example, had a considerable capitalist
presence; parts of North China tended to adhere much more closely to the communist system. Dealing with the Chinese was particularly difficult, however, because of the lack of an authoritative legal code. He said that exporters to China should be sure that they earned a
profit on contracts right from the beginning. They should not
proper
imagine that they would gain credit later for having thrown bread on
the waters.
Finally, there was a brief discussion on the UK Government's economic
policies. In response to a question from Mr Bremridge about the reaction to the Budget the Financial Secretary said that once the
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