1989-05-15 18:51 G.I.S
33 P.93
3)
4)
Hong Kong spares no efforts in enforcing the control on ivory
trade by prosecuting ivory smugglers and confiscation of illegal
ivory. In the last three years, Hong Kong Govemment made 06
seizures involving 3 510 Kg of illegal raw and simply-prepared
ivory. Among them, only one case involving 5.3 Kg of ivory orapo
which were intercepted in July 1988, was originated from United
Arab Emirates. Since August 1988, Hong Kong has intercepted
52 cases of illegal importe involving 803 Kg of worked ivory.
Most of these cases are technical offences involving worked
ivory legally exported from exporting countries in accordance
with CITES provision but without obtaining the required import
licences in advance from Hong Kong.
The claim that the Poon family using legitimate paper to import
illegaly ivory from United Arab Emirates is groundless. No
import licence has since 1980 been issued to the Poon family to
import ivory in raw or simply-prepared forme from United Arab
Emirates. Since August last year, when the control was extended
to cover worked ivory, no licence has been granted for the
Poon family to import worked ivory from United Arab Emirates or
from other sources.
According to the APD record, the Poon
family imported 12.8 tonnes of raw ivory from Singapore, Japan
and Portugal in 1987 with the approval of CITES.
5) We have no information about the ivory shipment to which the
ITN programme referred. It is likely that this shipment would
have already come into Hong Kong before the control on worked ivory
came in force in August last year. The Hong Kong Government
has been paying particular attention to the Poon family whe
has not applied for any import of raw ivory since 1987 and
worked ivory since August 1988.