Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
19 February 1979
39
From The Minister of State
The Rt Hon The Lord Goronwy-Roberts
Hick
340/20
RECEIVED IN REMOVEY 53. 51
22 FEB 1979
DASK OF IMDEX
PE
RY
Action
31
N2
2212
A
My
Near
Ben,
In my letter of 31 January in reply to yours of 23 January, with which you enclosed one from the Society for Community Organisation (SOCO) in Hong Kong about the problems of the Hong Kong boat people, I promised to write to you again when I had received a full report from the Hong Kong Government.
Having now received this report, I think it might be helpful if I explained who these boat people are and the background to their campaign for public housing before dealing with the specific incident on 7 January referred to in SOCO's Letter.
Hong Kong has always had a large floating population, most of whom are fishermen, but including also a great many involved in cargo handling. The numbers have declined steadily since the war as people who have for generations worked afloat have taken jobs ashore. Between 1960 and 1978, some 80,000 boat dwellers were resettled by the Hong Kong Government in public housing estates. In the same period the number of boats in sheltered anchorages dropped from approximately 7,800 to 2,400.
The main problem now is with squatters - people who, unable to obtain suitable accommodation ashore, live, without authorisation, on boats moored in the various typhoon shelters around Hong Kong. They fall into three categories:-
a) illegal immigrants from China who arrive in their own boats and continue to live on them until they can be resettled ashore;
Mr Ben Ford MP House of Commons London SW1
/b)
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.