TNAG-0340-FCO40-376-Aid-to-Hong-Kong-from-UK-1972 — Page 13

CODE 18-77

CF 242/77/01

Reference...

१२.

Mr Goodfellow (HKIOD)

AID FOR HONG KONG

Thank you for your minute of 10 November, covering a draft letter to Hong Kong.

2. I see from earlier minutes that Mr R B M King directed that the Polytechnic project would have to be put to our Projects Committee. This procedure is outlined in Section A12.04 of ODA's Office Procedure. I suggest that you do not go into details about this in the present letter to Hong Kong, but concentrate on the procedures for approving and ordering equipment and books for Morrison Hill, where you hope to get the programme under way in 1973/74. I have therefore suggested a

redraft of the final page of the letter with this in mind.

3. The system for ordering equipment was set out in a circular earlier this year, following the decision to abolish our own Equipment Section and transfer the work to the Crown Agents. You may already have seen this, but I enclose an additional copy. I also enclose copies of the form Al. As I have suggested in the draft, we would normally expect equipment lists to be approved by the appropriate Adviser here before we authorise the Crown Agents to order. In the case of technical education, this is Dr O G Pickard.

4. We do not normally provide books under technical assistance arrangements, but use our separate Books Presentation Programme instead. In the special case of Hong Kong, we will finance the provision of books from technical assistance funds, but I think it would be most appropriate to use the Books Presentation Programme channels, as we can get Publishers' discounts in this way, but the Crown Agents are not in a position to do so. I will look into this further, but this need not affect your letter to Hong Kong.

5. At some stage, you will wish to discuss the question of a Projects Committee submission on the Polytechnic with Mr J C Machin of our Aid Policy Department, Extension 629.

6. I am sorry if this all sounds complicated; perhaps we can discuss it on the telephone again once you have looked at these papers.

Malattisan

MA Pattison

2/ November 1972