布政司署
港下亞畢道
本署檔號 OUR REF.:
來函檔號 YOUr Ref.:
Х
SECRET
162A
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
29 March 1982
R D Clift Esq
Hong Kong & General Dept F CO
ник охо #PARAGUST 72
་་་
Tar
Dear trick,
of
076/4 P714
FUTURE OF HONG KONG:
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
129
see 188
Thank you for your teleletter of 16 March about the Planning Staff's suggestion that "some form of financial contingency planning", perhaps including the establishment of a central bank, might help avert or slow down a slide in confidence. Since Christopher Mallaby was only here for the afternoon of Sunday, 21 March, I did not arrange for him to see the Financial Secretary. But I consulted the Governor and John Bremridge before- hand on the line to take.
2.
Your account of their thinking suggests that the Planning Staff have failed to understand the nature of te problem. The essential point is that a slide in
nfidence brought about by Chinese unwillingness to take on acquiesce in action over 1997 would be a political problem, though its most immediate effects would be economic and financial. It would therefore require a political solution ie some action agreed with the Chinese sufficient to halt the slide. The further the slide and the process of disinvestment had gone the more positive the action would have to be. Intervention in the money markets or similar action here could have a rallying effect but without some bankable assurances from Peking it could only be temporary. There is thus no parallel
with earlier financial crises here.
192
Mr.
McQu434).
3113
3.
Mr Mario of 4 I am domphing.
We had already
made X & the Pl. Shaff I old reply explain that we were in the middle
If a debate with them & that it seemed norful for Me Mallaby
1⁄2 discuss with
HKC Dm pl.
Be 3.13