CONFIDENTIAL
Your ref: HKK 21/6
Our ref: CR 14/5061/70
Dean Michael,
M Clewly
D
9 hon mir dadies Chu.
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT,
HONG KONG.
RIGISTRY Nɔ. ₺ 1
12 JAN 1972
January 1972
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REF
AKK 21/2
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REP.
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147
I am sorry you have had to wait for a reply to your letter to me of 16th September, and your follow up to Mike Clinton of 10th November, about the registration of merchant shipping. There has, however, been quite a lot happening on this front in the interim and we have been trying to get our ideas straight on future policy.
As
I was able to have a long talk with Y.K. Pao in November when I was still at Government House. As background I used your letter and a brief (enclosed) prepared by the Director of Marine. you will see from the notes of the meeting (also enclosed) I undertook in principle to go as far on the question of officer manning as the Director of Marine felt able to advise in his brief, that is for the Director to utilise his powers of exemption for officers other than the Master (who would still have to be British), provided that it was recognised that other officers would need to be of a standard to meet British requirements. In the longer term I also undertook to examine the possibility of creating a Hong Kong Register by local Ordinance but pointed out that this would not exempt Hong Kong from the require- ment to meet its obligations under international agreements in this field entered into by the United Kingdom on our behalf.
We have now looked into this latter question a little further and consider that it would simplify our service to local shipowners wishing to adopt British registry if we had our own Hong Kong register. Although, as I have said, it would not absolve us from the obligation to maintain standards and to maintain our commitments to other signatories of the various conventions, it would permit a closer relationship with local shipowners and enable the Director of Marine to exercise a more flexible approach to the problems as they arise. This would, we feel, be to everyone's advantage.
E.O. Laird, Esq., C.M.G., M.B.E.,
Hong Kong Department,
Foreign & Commonwealth Office,
London, S.W.1,
England.
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