XN000022-1995-01-23 — Page 6

5-

Question: Governor, I think I heard you rightly saying that Hong Kong officials were going to be playing a role in the Preparatory Committee and I just wonder if you could elaborate. You seem to have offered something new in saying that Hong Kong officials could participate in the PWC seminar on Hong Kong as a financial centre, is that something new in terms of policy and do you have some sort of I don't know - elaborated plan as to how Hong Kong officials are going to slot in to the Preparatory Committee?

-

Governor: Well let me clarify what I said, and I think that the tapes to borrow from a late president of the United States will, without any deletions, bear out what I'm about to say. First of all, in setting out in terms our existing policy and what actually happens, I'm not enunciating anything new but perhaps merely observing that sometimes people are a little confused about what our position is and maybe that's our fault, maybe people hear what they want to hear. But we have never had any difficulty at all about briefing PWC members, about taking part in seminars which they organise on their own or with others. We've briefed PWC members on the localisation and adaptation of laws. I hope that we may have the opportunity - I would wish that we had had it earlier - to brief on issues like nationality, visa abolition agreements, right of abode. We attended a seminar on the link. We attended a seminar organised by the PWC and the TDC on economic links with the Mainland. I think about three of our senior officials attended that seminar. And if we are invited to attend the seminar on reclamation in the harbour - we haven't yet had an invitation but I'm sure we would want to respond to that positively, as we would wish to respond, I'm sure, positively if we were invited to represent the views of the Hong Kong Government at a seminar on the future of Hong Kong as an international, financial centre.

-

:

What we haven't been prepared to do is to join the PWC formally or to treat it as, as it were, an alternative organ to the Joint Liaison Group or to the other institutions set up under the sacred texts. There are some who say the PWC was set up as an attempt to smooth the transition. There are others who say that it was set up as an attempt to establish an alternative power centre. We're prepared to help it as enthusiastically as possible in the first of those categories. If the second was ever in anybody's mind, I don't think it is any business of ours to support it in that endeavour but I'm sure nobody ever thought of that.