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Meetings of this sort provide a forum for experienced Commonwealth arts administrators to explore fields of common interest, with a view to seeing what steps might be taken to help them in their work and to assist the development of the arts in their respective countries.
Hong Kong has received an invitation to host the 3rd Conference of Commonwealth Arts Councils, to be held in late 1983. The Commonwealth Institute, the Australia Council and the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Branch of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation have all written enthusiastically in support of the request for Hong Kong to host the Conference. It has been suggested that participation from Asia, Oceania and Africa will be higher if the Conference is held in Hong Kong: this is partly because of location, partly because of the stage and the speed of arts development here. For this reason, and to try and break away from the 'white Commonwealth' image, the Common- wealth Arts Organisation is planning to fund airfares for Third World delegates.
Hong Kong would be able to benefit from an international conference of this nature, in terms of bringing world talent and expertise to Hong Kong and of helping local artist and arts administrators to gain exposure to international developments in the arts field (as we saw in the I.M.C. Symposium earlier this year).
Before I discuss the idea further with the organisers, (and I expect details will have to be decided before the meeting of Commonwealth Arts Organisation and other representatives in Brisbane later this year), I am writing to seek your endorsement from the point of view that there would be no objection to Hong Kong accepting the invitation to host the 3rd Conference of the Commonwealth Arts Council in 1983.
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Bamitnigram
(E.B. Wiggham )
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Commissioner for Recreation and Culture