Reply:
(a)
(b)
Mr President,
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of the reasons for not mentioning whether the Administration will hand over to the Chinese Government before July 1997 an updated list of assets other than property assets owned by the Hong Kong Government; and
whether the debt amounting to $1 billion owed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the Hong Kong Government in connection with the expenses on the care and maintenance of Vietnamese migrants will be included in the list of assets of the Hong Kong Government; if not, why not, and whether the non- inclusion of the debt in the list of assets of the Hong Kong Government will prejudice the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in recovering the debt from the UNHCR?
The list of property assets owned by the Hong Kong Government which we handed over to the Chinese side in January this year is an updated version of an earlier list which we had agreed to compile and passed to the Chinese side in November 1994. We will update this list regularly to reflect changes over time to the Hong Kong Government's property portfolio. We are not, at present, committed to compiling similar lists in respect of non-property assets owned by the Hong Kong Government; hence, the absence of any reference to non-property assets in my Policy Commitments.
I now turn to the second part of the question relating to the advances made by the Hong Kong Government to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in connection with the care and maintenance of Vietnamese migrants in Hong Kong. As Members will see from the Annual Report of the Director of Accounting Services for the year ended 31 March 1996, which I have tabled in this Council today, the outstanding balance of expenditure incurred on Vietnamese migrants on behalf of the UNHCR forms part of the Hong Kong Government's assets and is so reflected in the statement of assets and liabilities of the General Revenue Account. Like all other assets of the Hong Kong Government, this sum will become the asset of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government on 1 July 1997. In a letter dated 24 April 1996 to the UK Ambassador in Geneva, the Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees has reiterated the UNHCR's commitment to the 1988 Statement of Understanding regarding reimbursement to the Hong Kong Government and confirmed that this commitment is "not bound by a timeframe".
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