り
RESTRICTED
British Consulate-General
cafey to In Galsworthy
p.a.
635 Dorchester Boulevard West Montreal Quebec Canada H3B 1R6
Telephone 866-5863
303
мог
20/12
R H Baker Esq
British High Commission
Ottawa
Your reference
Our reference
Date
18 December 1984
Dear Richand,
HONG KONG
1
Thank you for your letter of 4 December and copies of the Test of Acceptability White Paper.
2
Rowlie Frazee, President of the Royal Bank, received his copy of the White Paper before he left for Hong Kong. I had briefed him earlier, and have received a short note saying he will do his best to find occasions to make helpful statements while he is there.
3
I lunched yesterday with Michel Bélanger, President of the National Bank, who had been in Hong Kong at the time of the publication of the Draft Agreement, and gave him a copy of the Test of Acceptability White Paper. He told me that expatriates and Chinese nationals in Hong Kong had spoken enthusiastically of the Agreement, ethnic Chinese Hong Kongers had been inscrutable. His own view was positive. He made one point I had not heard before, which was that the Agreement was a boon to banks like his, who wanted to use their presence in Hong Kong to pursue business on the mainland and did not feel able to contemplate opening an office in China itself, since it would take forever for it to generate real new business. The Agreement took the pressure off them: they could now say they had a presence in what would by 1997 be a part of sovereign China.
Younener,
Trick
JN Elam
RESTRICTED
1