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SEP 05 '86 15:07 TIBCOOU) HK GOVT
In other developments, the media reported that NCNA HK branch director Xu Jiatun had left for Peking yesterday. Mr Xu said it was only a co-incidence that he and the Governor, Sir Edward Youde, were leaving for Peking on the same day.
He added that there would little chance for him to meet the Governor in Peking.
He said that he would discuss with Chinese officials HK's opinion on the Daya Bay project.
Petitions to Umelco by anti-nuclear groups yesterday were reported in the media. They included the Federation of Civil Service Unions and 11 Roman Catholic bodies. The Joint Conference for the Shelving of the Daya Bay Project petitioned the Governor at the airport. A petition letter by the group was handed to a senior police officer.
The lobbyists reiterated their calls for a special Legco debate on the Daya Bay issue.
Speaking to reporters after a public function yesterday, Legco Unofficial Lee Yu-tai said that he believed the Governor would give consideration to the call for a special Legco session to debate the Daya Bay issue even if the call came from a minority of Legco members.
A few papers, facluding Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, said Chinese University lecturer Sung See-wing told a seminar yesterday that China should consider putting off the date of signing the Daya Bay
contracts.
He felt that China should decide whether to sign the contracts after receiving a safety study report by the French in November.
In another report, Ta Kung said that a latest public opinion survey conducted by Marketing Decision Research Company showed that the percentage of HK people who were wholly opposed to the Daya Bay project had dropped from 28 to 21. However, the survey indicated that the majority respondents thought that the project should be halted or postponed until completion of the safety report. The story was also carried by Wen Wei Po the following day.
The HK Economic Journal said that it was imperative that a monitoring body be set up to oversee the safety of the Daya Bay plant. It said China should avoid appointing people with business connections in the mainland to the monitoring body. One of the paper's columnists, Yu Kam-yin, said that a local paper had adopted a firm anti-nuclear stand because it had learned from sources that there was a tendency among reformists in the Paking leadership to amend the Daya Bay plan. But the sources were proved to be wrong.
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