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6 April 1992
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
Hamish Macleod Esq CBE Financial Secretary Hong Kong
Dear Hanish
This is just to thank you for your hospitality, and time, during our visit last week. It was very good of you to field us with such good humour at a time when you had so much on your plate. The timing could not be helped. Fortunately we do not have elections all the time.
If it is any comfort, we all found these sessions immensely valuable, full of insights which are simply not available at this distance, and are much better placed to give well balanced advice here. It was particularly useful to get up to date on the airport financing issues, and to see some of the problems of bringing them out into the open.
However, the most striking revelation for me was the extent to which you are now having to go out and sell policies, such as the budget, in the new political environment, which is clearly not designed to make your task easy. It is difficult enough making the right economic and financial judgements without having to worry about assembling votes. I must say I was full
of admiration for the verve and resilience with which you were approaching this.
I hope that we can continue these exchanges reasonably frequently without putting to much of a burden on you and colleagues. The next opportunity will be K Y Yeung's visit to London in May, when I hope we can, among other things, also pin down the details and objectives of Rachel Lomax's week in Hong Kong with a bit of luck in June. Needless to say, if you yourself are likely to be in London, it would be very good to see you and to return some of your hospitality.