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Hong Kong investment in China. Indeed Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping
formally requested me to "asx investors in Hong Kong to put their
hearts at ease"; he also asked for encouragement of investment in
Guangzhou Province and the rest of China. You will have seen from press
reports that in dinner speeches Li Qiang stressed the same points about
the value of broader prospects in economic cooperation between Hong Kong
and the rest of China, and of Hong Kong investment in China. At all
levels they constantly reiterated the same theme; namely the importance
to them of the role which Hong Kong is playing and will play as a result
of the high level of its industrial, commercial and financial development.
This was a frank statement of China's needs. But one can also read into
it a most encouraging message.
Now for some of the detail. First of all tourism. They see
considerable scope for cooperation in our respective tourist industries.
They appear to respect our own industry and believe they can learn
from it in the rapid expansion of theirs. They would welcome cooperation
in the financing, construction, management and staff training of some
of their new hotels; and also in the planning of China tours beginning
and ending in Hong Kong. The construction of hotels apparently involves
both the Central Travel and Tourist authority in Peking and local planning
authorities. Reconciling the respective ideas takes time, and they
asked me to ask our syndicates engaged in negotiating hotel contracts
to be patient.
/A word about
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