XN000022-1979-05-04 — Page 17

PR 31

H

香港政府

GIS 新聞處

DAILY INFORMATION BULLETIN

SUPPLEMENT

Friday, May 4, 1979

SPEECH BY THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY, MR. PHILIP

HADDON-CAVE AT THE 12TH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE ADB BOARD OF GOVERNORS IN MANILA

I join other governors in thanking the government and people of the Republic of the Philippines for being, yet again, so hospitable to us; and I also join them in congratulating the management and staff of the Bank on their achievements in 1978 which are so well documented in the annual report before us.

This Bank has 29 regional members and its whole approach to its role as a regional development bank should be and, indeed, has been based on the twin principles of regional self-help and international co- operation. So I make no apology, Mr. Chairman, for drawing the attention of this annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Bank to a regional problem which has assumed frightening proportions in recent months. I refer to the exodus of people from Indochina. I shall not examine the causes or the status of this exodus. I shall simply argue that to assist in the search for practical solutions to the problems created by this exodus should be a priority concern of the Bank,

At the end of March 1979, of perhaps half a million people or more who have left Indochina in recent times, over 230,000 had sought refuge in various regional member countries of this Bank and are now in camps awaiting resettlement. So, whatever the causes and status of this exodus, it is a fact which cannot be ignored even by those not immediately affected; and it is a fact which this Bank cannot ignore as it prepares for what management has described as "(the) new and more complex challenges (of its) twelfth year,"

In the context of the total population of the region, a figure of 230,000 may not seen large, but it could grow rapidly over the next few months and the numbers who have arrived in several countries in the region are by no means insignificant in both absolute and relative terms. This is certainly the case so far as Hong Kong is concerned. Of these 230,000 people, 83,000 left Indochina by sea and over 25 per cent of these came to Hong Kong. Issued by Government Information Services, Beaconsfield House, Hong Kong. Tel: 5-233191

/So may I pell