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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
7. 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
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
8. 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
18.2/JM
9'd
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