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are essential to the continued prosperity of Hong Kong the confidence to remain in the territory. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.
We also recognise that the people of Hong Kong need to be given the strongest possible assurance that, should the worst occur, there would be help for those in need of a home of last resort. In such circumstances, we would mobilise the international community if the numbers leaving Hong Kong were larger than we could cope with alone. We have already raised the matter with our friends and partners on a number of occasions, including the Madrid European Council and the Paris Economic Summit as well as in bilateral contacts. The Prime Minister will do so again at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. We shall continue to take every opportunity to emphasise to our friends and partners that they have a shared responsiblity to help.
CONFIDENCE
In addition, we are taking a number of steps to restore confidence, building on the foundation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
The Hong Kong Government are pressing ahead with a number of important new infrastructure projects.
A Bill of Rights for Hong Kong will be introduced as soon as posible
We shall be carefully considering the programme for democratisation in Hong Kong, with the aim of ensuring that the pace of development is in line with the wishes of the people of Hong Kong.
We are continuing to use every appropriate channel open to us to influence the Basic Law drafting process in ways helpful to Hong Kong.
We have also made it clear to the Chinese Government that it is above all for them to demonstrate through their actions their commitment to the Joint Declaration and to the concept of "one country, two systems", and thereby to begin to regain the trust of the people of Hong Kong.
They can help to do this, for example, by ensuring that the final version of the Basic Law is in a form which commands confidence in Hong Kong and by their response to the concerns of Hong Kong people about the stationing of Chinese military forces in the territory after 1997.
DEMOCRACY
As
We are carefully considering the pace and nature of democratisation in Hong Kong following recent events in China. always, we shall want to ensure that the decisions we take are the