16 JAN '90 11:19
FROM COI TECHNICAL RADIO
TO FCO NEWS
?
PAGE.004/007
TRANSCRIPT A FOREIGN SBC PC
Al
HONG KONG 16 JAN 90
3
FOREIGN SECRETARY (COBT):
And this is not just pie in the sky. Many of these things
are already under construction and there is no shortage of
companies and banks lining up to join in the rest.
This will again transform Bong Kong and it will also
transform the Pearl River Delta region of China and this seems to
me the nub. The Pearl River Delta is already the hinterland of
Hong Kong, 2 million people are working there, directly or
indirectly, for Hong Kong manufacturing companies. Many more
farmers and others in Guandung (phon) Province are selling their
produce to Hong Kong. I saw the queue of lorries finding their way
south across the border bringing their produce to Hong Kong. Four
and a half thousand Hong Kong ventures are operating in Guandung
Pruviuce.
Guandung, and the Delta in particular, is the fastest
growing part of China and Guandung has long overtaken Shanghai as
the main exporting province thanks to the presence and vigour of
Hung Kung.
But aqually Hong Kong's growth in the '80s, amazing growth,
could not have been achieved without the growth of trade with China
and without Chinese workers. Hong Kong and China are each other's
largest trading partners and each other's largest investors.
I say this because it seems to me an important factor which
must not be neglected. We have to look in economic terms at Hong
Kong and the Pearl River Delta as a whole and if you do that you
see the scale of the prospects.