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33 4173
RIONE
Minister for A&S
HONG KONG REGISTER
CONFIDENTIAL
cc
Reference
Pa
26/10
PS/PUSS A&S PS/Secretary A&S
Mr Hubback - Dep Sec Mir Brigstocke - SP Mr Manson SG (MAR) Mr Standen - MAR 1 Mr Madigan MAR 4
Kesers Manson, Standen, Madigan and I have discussed the records of the meetings which the Minister had in Hong Kong which were
ahod to your minute of 3 April. While we accept that little home can be done until we receive the Governor's response to the Sraft consultative document, the fact is that concern about possible moves to establish a separate Hong Kong register is Proving and we think it would be useful to comment now on some of the points which arose during the Minister's discussions.
Keeting with Hong Kong Shipowners on 23.3.73
Mr Tung is recorded as saying (paragraph 4 of the note) that some
2 the standards set by DTI for eg. materials used in safety equipment were impossible to meet. This is certainly not the case because ships are being built in Japan for the UK register. We think possibly the best response to the points made in this peragraph would be to ask which requirements regarding materials are causing difficulty and we would then be prepared to look into these. It is true that we have arrangements in hand for visiting the Japanese shipyards but it would be a long complicated job to check on all the safety standards, materials, cto used by the Japanese and we were not in fact proposing to go as far as this but if we know where the main difficulties lie we might be able to do something about them.
With regard to Taiwan certificates (paragraph 5 of the note) we would not want to go so far as to say that the standards of Taiwan examinations are very low. The problem is comparability. The examinations are set in the Chinese language and fir Fletcher himself says that he has not been able to undertake any kind of comparison of their standards in relation to UK examinations and certificates. The reference by Mr C Y Tung to IMCO fully accepting Taiwan certificates of competency is nonsense: IMCO does not in fact have any arrangements for accepting certificates. There is Gone reference to many large countries fully accepting Taivan certificates and here we think we might ask for a list of these: we suspect that they would mainly be flag of convenience' countries,
With regard to reciprocal acceptance of qualifications of EEC contriés (paragraph 6 of the note) we have not yet opened up discussions on this question but we are drafting a paper intended jor consultation with the UK delegation in Brussels. It is clear
on recent courultations with the Belgians and Dutch that this Al be a lengthy task. As regards Taiwan certificates, I have Broody hinted in the previous paragraph at the very great
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