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economic stability. Mr McLaren reminded him that Ministers had made
it clear that the interests of the private sector would be covered
in
the package eventually agreed upon. Brigadier Christie said that he hoped that this would be borne out in the results of the package.
Mr McLaren said that Ministers would soon be considering the details
of the package. Mr Lee hoped that the package would not require
people to leave Hong Kong in order to take up the promise of the
passport.
6. Brigadier Christie asked for Mr McLaren's views on the
internationalisation of Hong Kong. Mr McLaren thought this was а
good thing in principle the more investment and involvement by the
international community in Hong Kong, the better. If there was
greater investment then there would be a greater drive to see that the territory remains prosperous. HMG was encouraging its European
partners, the USA and Japan to invest further in Hong Kong. It
would of course be helpful if Hong Kong could become the base for
some international organisations but existing organisations already
had bases and there were few new ones on the horizon. If new
regional organisations did appear and had need of headquarters, HMG would consider pushing for this to be in Hong Kong.
7. Turning to major infrastructure projects in Hong Kong,
Mr Wrangham said that he very much hoped that UK companies would be
able to gain some of the very large contracts which were going to
come up in the next decade or so. These amounted to £7 billion to £10 billion, and involved such projects as the airport and port
development schemes. Mr McLaren said that HMG was very much seized of this and indeed the person in charge of such matters at the DTI was a former British Trade Commissioner in Hong Kong.
There was
8. Brigadier Christie noted that Hong Kong was now becoming more
and more dependent on its links with Southern China.
concern in Hong Kong at the current sniping which was going on
between HMG and Peking, and HKG and Peking. He hoped that it would
soon be possible for the three administrations to get down to
helpful discussions in a more cordial relationship. Mr McLaren
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