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Hong Kong's prime concern is to correct some of the problems of under-subscription or under-representation which have or may occur amongst certain groups or classes of applicant. They are looking to avoid over-provision of places amongst occupations where demand has been lacking and to be able to transfer places to groups where they will be used. There are other small changes they wish to make at the same time, details of which are contained in the Annex.
I propose that the second tranche of the Scheme should be the last and that an announcement be made to this effect
in due course. There are too few places left to warrant further phases; there will be too little time left for another phase after the second tranche applications have been processed; and it seems likely that few people will leave it until 1996 to emigrate if they have that intention and have not by then secured an insurance policy.
Librarians and related professionals
A further change it is proposed to make which does not require amendment of the original Order is an alteration in the composition of the General Occupational Class by the inclusion of "librarians and related professionals" amongst the "Information Science professionals". The original draft Scheme was very broad in scope and included most of the working population (although focused on people with higher skills) and was narrowed at the behest of the then Prime Minister. Hong Kong are not now proposing any reversion to the original scope. They have singled out this one group of librarians, curators and archivists because they are a section of the workforce with a high emigration rate. They contribute significantly to improving the population's literacy and knowledge, and the rapid expansion of tertiary education in Hong Kong has resulted in great demand for library services. They cannot easily be replaced. I believe that this is justifiable. An announcement about the inclusion of this Group would be made in Hong Kong in the run up to the second tranche.
British links
On Hong Kong's recommendation, I propose to make no change in the second tranche to the provisions assigning points for British links. When the scheme was approved in 1990, Ministers agreed that a maximum of 50 points should be awarded for British connections, but that officials should monitor the operation of the Scheme to consider whether anything more needed to be done for employees of British firms. Of the 55,606 applicants in the relevant category (the general occupational class), 10,400 were
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