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owners.
redevelopment schemes, either alone or in partnership with existing
The Provisional Board of the Corporation was formed in
September and the planning of the first urban renewal projects is
already underway.
XI
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
76.
During 1986 major
resettlement of Vietnamese
efforts were made to speed up the
refugees in camps in Hong Kong.
Following the decision by Her Majesty's Government in September 1985
to accept some 500 refugees from Hong Kong for family reunion in the
United Kingdom under relaxed criteria, a diplomatic campaign was
mounted by Her Majesty's Government, supported by the Hong Kong
Government, to persuade other countries to offer more resettlement
places to Hong Kong
Many countries responded possitively,
including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.
For
its part the Hong Kong Government decided to accept 250 more
refugees of Chinese origin for local settlement.
77.
In response to a request made by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, the
the Hong Kong Government also agreed, in
February 1986, to establish a transit centre in Hong Kong, to help
facilitate the resettlement of refugees rescued at sea under the
International Rescue at Sea Resettlement Offers scheme.
78.
in
However, eleven years after the end of the war in Vietnam
there i s still no durable solution in sight to the problem of the continuing exodus of refugees. During 1986 the number of Vietnamese
refugees arriving in Hong Kong doubled compared with 1985. This was
the first time that the rate of arrivals
the territory had
increased since the implementation of the closed centre policy in
July 1982
Much of the benefit from an improved rate of
resettlement in 1986 was thus cancelled out by the large increase in
the number of new arrivals in Hong Kong. Further, although some 3,816 refugees were resettled from Hong Kong in 1986 this level is
unlikely to be maintained in 1987. The efforts
Her Majesty' $
Government and the Hong Kong Government resettlement thus brought a
of
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