Mr P E Halliday Esq
Chairman of the Superintendents
Association
Royal Hong Kong Police Force Police Headquarters
Arsenal Street
HONG KONG
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1. Thank you for your letter of 13 January to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs which raises a number of matters of concern to members of your Association. I shall try to deal with them all as fully as I can, but final conclusions on some have yet to be reached.
2.
On the question of the security and value of pensions, the Sino British Joint Declaration on the question of Hong Kong is very clear on this matter. states that:
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It
"The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall pay to such persons who retire or complete their contracts, as well as to those who have retired before 1 July 1997, or to their dependants, all pensions, gratuities, allowances and benefits due to them on terms no less favourable than before, and irrespective of their nationality or place of residence".
The Joint Declaration also states that the Hong Kong dollar will continue to circulate and remain freely convertible.
4.
I do not think it is appropriate to engage in hypothetical discussions about what arrangements there might be if there was a default in the payment of pensions. Any action would have to be for the government of the day to decide. As regards currency fluctuations, the existing link between the Hong Kong dollar and the US dollar has proved extremely effective and we do not at this stage] the need for a mechanism to preserve the value of salaries and pensions from adverse currency fluctuations. [The situation will of course be kept under review]
NOBADY