T
be raised due to a higher risk premium around 1997. Action: Mr
Lund.
18 RISKS - Mr lane suggested that HK's gateway status possibly an upside rather than a downside risk due to it's superiority over competing gateways and increasing infrastructure links. Mr Muckersie thought Hong Kong may lose out to greater competition from China's other gateways. Also, customers such as
Taiwan may start to deal directly with China once their political
problems have been resolved. It was agreed to take out the
potential collapse element of the risk and write it in a more
general way to reflect the impact on confidence in capital flows abroad and reduced investment. Action: it was agreed to re-draft the description of this risk in terms of Hong Kong facing greater competition from other gateways (both inside and outside China).
19. Mr Lund commented that he aimed to get the revised forecast
out within a couple of weeks.
20.
Under any other business, Mr King thanked ESG members for
agreeing to reschedule the meeting so that China and Hong Kong could be taken in a single meeting. This has been operationally
convenient for the Bank and had the incidental benefit of allowing
the inter-related issues to be taken into account. Mr King had
written to other ESG members suggesting that it might be appropriate to hold a "methodology" session. He suggested that it might be possible to hold this in about one month but (ie around
the end of October) asked other members to let him know if that
were not likely to be convenient.