XN000022-1993-05-04 — Page 35

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1993

21

We're absolutely clear that in the system that

we're constructing in Hong Kong, even though there is

limited democracy, that limited democracy must be

credible, that the arrangements for the last elections

under British sovereignty in 1995 have got to be clean and

straightforward, and that's what we're discussing with

Chinese officials in Beijing at the moment.

Hong Kong has been a spectacular success, the

tenth largest trading community in the world, the second highest per capita GNP in Asia, a per capita GNP which is

likely to exceed that of about half the members of the

European Community within the next year or so.

We are likely to overtake the Netherlands,

Italy dare I mention the United Kingdom

well before

the transfer of sovereignty in 1997.

We represent in Hong Kong, with 6 million

people, 19 percent of China's GNP. We have the busiest

container port in the world, adding capacity equivalent to

the size of Seattle or Oakland every year.

The fourth largest airport, which will, when we

complete it

(Laughter.)

GOVERNOR PATTEN: be much the largest airport

in the world, the tourist center of Asia.

And so the superlatives roll on, not just the

economic ones, either. We have invested over the years

considerably in social equity programs so that we can now

boast rather better health care statistics on the most

important items than, shall we say, the United States, the

United Kingdom, or Australia, or New Zealand.

/So it's