FOREIGN SECRETARY
SPEECH
A
LONDON
6
←
16 SEPTEMBER 1991
arrived in Hong Kong.
I remember that skyscraper city when it was a tiny market town
that you looked at across the border, the first market town in
China where the railway came through at Shenjung (phon). Now it
is a huge city, a huge Chinese city and the Hong Kong enterprise
employ in the whole province of Hong Kong 2 3 million Chinese
workers, 86 percent of the investment in Guandong Province comes
from Hong Kong and about 6,000 Hong Kong managers work there.
Guandong is now China's top exporting province generating about 20
percent of China's foreign exchange. Guandong's exports amounted
to US dollars 10 billion in 1990.
I mention this fact because it is often forgotten in all the
discussion about Hong Kong but I think it is very significant to
anyone considering investment in Hong Kong, you are also investing
in the key to southern China. There is a huge potential there, 60
million people in Guandong Province compared to 6 million in Hong
Kong itself.
I do not claim, Ladies and Gentlemen, that this relationship that
I have been talking about between Britain and China, between all
the different elements in Hong Kong, will be an entirely smooth
one between now and 1997 because what we are trying to do is
difficult, we are trying to make a success of the concept of two
systems in one country. There will be ups and downs, just as
there have been in recent years, we are negotiating an immensely
difficult transition within the framework of the Joint
Declaration. I just hope that investors will not get cast into
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