CONFIDENTIAL
هنا
g
Politial Advise,
Капу Кад
G.B. Wiggham Peking
In Larghen
HKK
2010/4.
CEIVED IN REGISTRY
21 NO 1986
SK OFFICER
LAST PAPER
PA
Mr Hum
REGISTRY
Action Taken
,
HKD
A Sate 31/10
to Themast
The yas
PA new fill,
350%
من
Secretary of State's Meeting with KS Li
The Secretary of State had a meeting at 1100 am yesterday with Li Kashing who was accompanied by Lord Derwent and Simon Murray. David Gillmore and I were also present.
ملتا
Mr Li began by saying that the economic situation in Hong Kong was on the face of it good. The stock market was at an overall high and the property market was doing well. But most of the optimism was generated by foreign investors putting more in: domestic money was still moving out, and there remained considerable nervousness among domestic investors. domestic money was still going into the SEZs.
Some
Mr Li said that he was involved in a joint venture with CITIC in China for a coal-fired power station. He had invited NEI to tender for it: the contract would be worth about £100 million. If NEI were successul it could be followed by further business in China. The deal with the Chinese was an imaginative one which involved payment on their side in part with coal. Mr Li would be able to export some of this onwards to Taiwan and South Korea. The Secretary of State said he hoped that NEI would get the contract.
Mr Li said that the PRC, despite newspaper reports that they were open to the idea of direct elections, did not think that direct elections would be good for Hong Kong. He shared this view: direct elections would not lead to the right people coming into power. While the views of the majority in Hong Kong were unclear, successful businessmen and professional people were in general opposed to direct elections. In response to a question from the Secretary of State, he said that it might be allright to have a limited number of directly elected seats, but there would be trouble if there were too many. The membership of LEGCO following the introduction of indirect elections was already significantly different from before.
Prompted by Lord Derwent, Mr Li said that he thought a change of Government in London would be a serious blow to confidence in Hong Kong. The Secretary of State pointed out that there was all-party support for the Hong Kong
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