Overseas Trade Services
J Smith-Laittan Esq British Trade Commission Hong Kong
Direct line.
071-215 6762
HC108
Our ref. ECO 285/4
Your ref
Date 25 October 1993
Dear James
No. I'm apailuot
Ms Sapindos (fr)
I have not seen
J-SU's
hello &
27 sept. Hewe you?
Ros 2111
Pa Schoo
Telex
Department of Trade and Industry
Ashdown House 123 Victoria Street London SW1E 6RB
Enquiries 071-215 5000
8813148 DIHQ G
Fax 071-828 3258
KLB 285/1.
RECE
ESTRY
1
NOV 1993
STRY
.ሉ.
A
90)
CBI OVERSEAS SCHOLARSHIPS SCHEME
I am very sorry not to have replied much earlier to your fax of 27 September. It is disappointing to hear that you are continuing to have difficulty in finding suitable candidates for the above Scheme. In fact, your experience is not unique in this respect. The British Council in Edinburgh who administer the Scottish International Resource Project (SIRP) have also encountered difficulties similar to yours. (SIRP is designed to enable mature
overseas post graduate students studying in Scotland the opportunity of undertaking short working attachments with Scottish companies). The Council have only managed to place one Hong Kong Chinese student over the two year duration of the scheme. Others have been screened but have lost interest once they have been told of the limits of the financial support available.
Turning to your suggestion to offer scholarships to Industrial Centre staff, it would be useful to have further details about this organisation before making any firm decision. While we would wish to adopt a flexible approach in order to attract candidates from Hong Kong, I think we must insist nevertheless that the scholars in question hold an engineering degree, and have had a year's engineering experience - two of the principal conditions of assistance. More subjectively, we would also expect the candidates to make, or are likely to be in a position to make, procurement decisions which could be of benefit to UK industry, rather than holding academic positions having little or no exposure to local business and commerce.
APEMON03.07
dti
the department for Enterprise
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