TNAG-0466-FCO40-531-Hong-Kong-s-interests-in-EEC-capitals-1974 — Page 105

Minister (Economic)

British Embassy

Telephone Bonn 234061

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No. 51

53 Bonn Friedrich-Ebert-Allee MAR 1974

AKK 6/598/2.

R Q Braithwaite Esq

European Integration Department (E) Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Jear Rodic.

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My Heart

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222

Pl. copy & N. Goodfellow Hiring then p... poz. 14 1573.

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Your reference

EP/6/393/1

Our reference

Dato

8 March 1974

HONG KONG'S INTERESTS IN EEC CAPITALS

Many thanks for your letters of 14 and 22 February. Nigel Watt, accompanied by Patrick Dodge, the Counsellor for Hong Kong's Commercial Affairs in Brussels, visited Bonn on 7 March. They spent most of the day in discussions with the Information and Commercial sections in the Embassy and were also guests at a lunch hosted by Dr. Ernst of the Asian Department of the Federal Press and Information Office.

2.

From Bonn, Nigel Watt was going on to Frankfurt and a couple of days in Hamburg.

spend 2 1/2 days in

Their programme in both these centres was being coordinated by the Hong Kong Trade Development Councils there.

3. We explained to them in some detail the general climate in Germany for information and commercial work, and I gave them some information about the extent of our own commercial operation, with special emphasis on participation in trade fairs, and on inward missions. I will not go into this in any detail but you might like to know the sort of conclusions which Nigel Watt seemed to be drawing by the end of the

day.

4. Given the complexity and decentralisation of commercial and information matters in Germany, he seemed to be thinking that the most effective way in which Hong Kong could operate would be through the very powerful German press corps in' London and the corps of German press correspondents based in Hong Kong. Dr. Ernst of the Federal Press and Information Office promised to let him have a list of those journalists based in Hong Kong and a set of press-cuttings for the past three years of anything in the German and Swiss press about Hong Kong. Watt was moving away from the idea of basing extra Hong Kong staff anywhere in Germany towards strengthening his staff and extending their activities in London and perhaps also in Brussels. He at no stage suggested that he would be asking for one of our officers to be used as a linking point for Hong Kong in Germany.

5. I think Watt will have found his'visit here instructive and useful and, in my view, the conclusions which he seems to be drawing would appear to be scusible and sufficiently modest. I will be most interested to hear what he has to say to you when he calls again on 29 March after his European tour.

Чар

Али

horman

(Norman Stathun)

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