Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
(12)
tel : 071-270 2721
fax: 071-270 3369
London SW1 2AH
18 June 1992
My Ricketts agai
Yes ok I thile: Mr Bb spoke with
M. Stone
Mr Gox ol
me те севсик не
problem:
smell the CS in the U tuen.
in
19/6
HP Evans Esq
HM Treasury
London
HKD 026/12
Parliament Street
REL
0 1 JUL 1997
M
301 feems ok
How th
VISIT OF SIR JOHN ANSON TO HONG KONG
1.
We spoke about K Y Yeung's response of 18 June (attached) to my letter to him of 5 June, which reflected the discussion he had with you and with me. Having discussed the issue further in Hong Kong, he thinks:
(a) they would like to narrow the range of issues to be
examined, in particular public sector expenditure definition and its appropriate size in relation to GDP;
(b)
(၁)
Sir J Anson will therefore be a bit too senior for the job - could you propose someone else; and
they would, on consideration, like to pay for the whole job themselves.
2. This is a bit exasperating, not least because (a) was Yeung's idea not ours - we explained the difficulties of determining how long is a piece of string. Moreover, it is inconsistent with the last sentence of his third paragraph. As you know, I had always urged (c) on them anyway, as a way of demonstrating that it was indeed their own show. I infer from this that they are worried that this operation might seem like having something imposed on them from the outside; and that it might be too high profile.
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