TNAG-0893-FCO40-1103-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1979 — Page 126

Grottemey

G.T. Management Limited

Incorporated in England - No. 946811

Registered Office:

1st Floor, Park House, 16 Finsbury Circus, London EC2M 7DJ Telephone: 01-628 8131

Telex: 886100 Telegrams: Geeteeman London EC2

The Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Howe, QC, MP3, Chancellor of the Exchequer,

11 Downing Street,

London SWI

Directors.

W T. J. Griffin Chairman

R. C. Thornton

P. G. Glossop

J. A. Dick R. J. Boyd

P. E. O'Connor

J. G Greenwood

D. H. Fitzwilliam-Lay B H. H. Fung

2 July 1979

Dear Sir Geoffrey,

I hope you will forgive me taking up your valuable time, especially in view of the undoubted work load which you must have encountered on taking up your present onerous office. I and my colleagues, all of whom are entrepreneurs in the jungle of international investment management, were delighted to see London put back on the map by a budget which must have taken some courage to prepare and deliver.

As one

I am, however, not writing to you about the budget or anything financial. of your constituents, who has also a business and residence in Hong Kong, I am seeking your help and assistance at the highest possible level on behalf of the boat people of Vietnam.

In terms of human tragedy, there can be little to equal the present position. I travelled home a week ago from Hong Kong with 100 of the Sibonga victims and it was hard to contemplate, as I looked at the bright-eyed children and their parents, that they were amongst the lucky half of all leavers from Vietnam, who had escaped drowning and piracy and reached Ilong Kong.

The problem is that the present government in Hong Kong, and I speak with some knowledge having lived there on and off for the last nine years, has failed to appreciate the economic significance of the arrival of these unfortunate refugees in the colony.

It is important to distinguish between those who slip over the border from China, who are quite often opportunist, and the genuine refugee, thrown on to the high seas by a hostile domestic regime. Hong Kong owes its present prosperity to a high rate of immigration in the past. In 1946 the population was only 600,000 strong and yet in the succeeding years has risen to 4.8 million without noticeably damaging either the favourable development of business in Hong Kong, or the standard of living of even the poorest people.

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