TNAG-0037-FCO40-73-Effort-to-improve-relations-with-Hong-Kong-1968 — Page 80

CODE 18-75

10

Reference....

Mr. Beaty.

We should value your own views and those of Universities and Technical Education Department in relation to paragraph 3(a) of Mr. W.S. Carter's minute attached.

2.

The Hong Kong Government has recently considered whether to apply to join the Colombo Plan and sought our advice. They have not gone ahead with this proposal, no doubt because they recognize that in the context of Asia as it is at the moment they would be expected to be much more of a donor than a recipient government. Suggestions have often been made that training places in Hong Kong would provide a practical and economic form of technical assist- ance in many fields; but we have always understood that the pressure on training places there by Hong Kong's own population is severe.

3. In theory, however, it would be perfectly possible to provide a third country training in Hong Kong, as indeed we did for a number of years in Singapore before independence. This would mean Hong Kong providing the training places, and we would pay approved trainees from different parts of Asia who took up the places. We could not under Colombo Plan contribute to the capital cost of the new training centre in Hong Kong, and I do not know whether this would qualify for C.D. & W. funds.

4.

I am minuting this to you, however, because I understand that a Mr. Prescott called on you recently to discuss some such project in the field of town planning. Clearly this is a field where Hong Kong has plenty of practical experience to offer; and therefore if any sort of regional training centre is ever to be set up in Hong Kong, town planning should be high on the list for consideration.

XcMandentli

(D.C. Mandeville)

28 February, 1967.

c.c. Mr. Maby

Mr. W.J. Smith,

Mr. W.S. Carter, Commonwealth Office.

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