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deal of their effort to trade promotion and inward
investment/industrial promotion, for which they act as the
European Regional Centre. They also do a good deal of
recruitment work, particularly into the Police Force. They
have a "Community Services" section for liaison with the
traditional Hong Kong/Chinese community here (mainly from
the new territories). They offer advice and support, as a
kind of unofficial Embassy for Hong Kong, but are gradually running down this side of their operation, and switching resources to liaising with the younger Hong Kong executives
and businessmen working here (the HKGO were behind the
creation of the Hong Kong Executives Club last year).
Liaison with Hong Kong students is another major occupation:
there are some 10,000 Hong Kong students in all studying in
the UK.
4.
The public affairs work of the office is the one which has come to ministerial attention. This is handled mainly
by the Chief Information Officer, Peter Randall, who keeps
in close touch with David Crystal and seems to be a
generally effective operator at working level. John Yaxley
and K C Kwong are now trying to do more at their level to influence presentation of Hong Kong exchanges in the British
media. As they are not slow to point out, many of the
stories are of course written by British correspondents in
Hong Kong. The arrival of John Elliott and Mike Hansen
should mean more effort is devoted to cultivation of these
correspondents in the future. I think Hansen would be a
good candidate for a Category II Sponsored Visitors'
Programme (ie. HKG pay his air fare and we arrange a programme), to enable him to spend some time in News Department and perhaps the No 10 Press Office. The Minister
might put this thought into Mr Yaxley's mind.
*
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* The new Hill Information ний
Condiiator.