TNAG-0915-FCO40-1126-Inspection-of-British-Trade-Commission--Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 11

CONFIDENTIAL

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

7.

compile comprehensive commercial records on Hong Kong firms involved in trade with China;

report on economic developments in Guangdon Province this would need to be coordinated with the appropriate Departments of the Hong Kong Government);

construct a duplicate (ie to Peking) information bank within the Trade Commission on the Chinese economy and their methods of doing business;

disseminate information about British products and the overall British Trade performance via Hong Kong-based papers and journals which are now being circulated within China.

The Senior Trade Commissioner's Office has no spare capacity to allocate to these tasks and they are clearly likely to exceed the time which can be devoted to them by the present DS 5 in the China Trade Unit, who is also Vice Consul for Macao and could not guarantee always to be available in Hong Kong if the new First Secretary leading the CTU were away in China. We have therefore to consider the addition of a third desk officer, and the ideal would be a DS7E experienced in Commercial work, but not necessarily a Chinese speaker. Unless workloads continue to grow there may not necessarily, in the long term, be a full time job for this third officer. We considered whether an appointment should be deferred until it can be seen whether interest in China Trade is sustained and increased. However since there is a good deal of work to be done in building up the CTU's procedures and records and since it would be fatal, in the early stages, to mar the relationship between Hong Kong and Peking through conflicting demands on an inadequately staffed CTU, we concluded that it would be safer to create a DS7E post and review the need for it in, say, one years time when the issues both in Peking and Hong Kong will be clearer. If the post is retained it could be very valuable as a commercial training post for language students who have graduated® from the school in Hong Kong but for whom there is no immediate vacancy in Peking.

8.

Visits to Hong Kong by senior staff from Peking are frequent. We think, however, that new Senior Trade Commissioners in Hong Kong should also visit both Peking and Canton early in their tour of duty.

SUPPORTING STAFF

9.

We doubt whether the registry work (which should include responsibility for the small number of Confidential files at present held by the Senior Trade Commissioner's PA) could constitute a full time task for a Grade 10 officer. There will also be an increased secretarial requirement. The most economic arrangement will therefore be to combine these two functions in an S2 Secretarial/Registry post. The incumbent will need to be trained in commercial registry work before taking up appointment.

/COMMERCIAL INFORMATION

P

CONFIDENTIAL