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RESTRICTED
8 October 1993
- Re Scholaship i
BY FAX:
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
London SWIA 2AH
RF Cornish Esq LVO
Senior British Trade Commissioner HONG KONG
De Trancis,
SPONSORED VISITS PROGRAMME
285/1
RECE
ISTRY
1093
REGISTRY
IN
Von Taken
1. Forgive me for consulting you at rather short notice about a point which has arisen in connection with my Top Management Round (TMR) return. It relates to sponsored visits from Hong Kong.
2. It was only when the TMR papers reached me this week that I became fully aware of the significant savings from my programme budget expenditure which will occur over the next three financial years as a result of the running down of the FCOSAS scheme. The sums involved are substantial - £600,000, £700,000 and £400,000 respectively for the financial years 1994/95, 1995/96 and 1996/97. savings are the natural consequence of Hong Kong's return to China and have been agreed with the Hong Kong Government and approved by Ministers.
These
3.
As you would expect, I have been considering whether there are any other uses to which these savings could be. put within my command. We plan to bid for a number of sponsored visitors from Taiwan, and for an increase in scholarships and sponsored visitors in respect of Korea. But we should also consider whether there are any possibilities for sensible additional expenditure in Hong Kong itself (bearing in mind that under current arrangements I can switch money between programme budgets but not divert it from programme budgets to, for example, UK-based staff).
4.
In theory, a possible candidate would be the sponsored visits programme. Arguably this will become of increasing importance to us as some of the present links between Britain and Hong Kong weaken as a result of the change in the constitutional relationship. This could be an argument in favour of a gradual build-up of the sponsored visits programme (and also in favour of taking a more "political" approach, with a closer involvement of UKRep JLG as the forerunner of the future political section of our Consulate General). I am not sure whether it would be the most natural thing to begin any build-up now, but the fact of
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