TNAG-0357-FCO40-393-Registration-of-merchant-shipping-in-Hong-Kong-1972 — Page 49

#:1.

CONFIDENTIAL

Copy

10, Downing Street, Whitehall

(42)

Ms Grechett itim Kelly:

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RECEIVED IN R ̃GISTOYN,.51

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1 AUG 1972

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28 July 1972

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I sent you a copy of my letter to Grattan of 7 June about the Prime Minister's talk with the Hong Kong shipping owner, Mr. Y.K. Pao. You will remember that the Prime Minister undertook to examine the possibility of a new scheme for the registration of vessels in Hong Kong, which met the standards required of senior officers, but without insisting that they should be of British nationality.

This does, I realise, fall within the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry, rather than the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I expect that your Department will already have begun elamin the possibility of an arrangement on these lines. I should be grateful if you could give me some indication of the time which is likely to be needed before lir. Heath is able to reply to Mr. Pao.

I am sending a copy of this letter to Grattan (Foreign and Commonwealth Office).

(SGD) BRIDGES

C.J. Farrow, Esq.

Department of Trade and Industry. CONFIDENTIAL