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Q. Don't you think that the development of Shum Chun and the areas near HK would
in the longer term affect HK's prosperity?
A. No. HK has always been open to growing pressures of one sort or another
from different countries which are competitive with our products and this is
simply another such pressure but you must remember this the economies of HK and China are really very closely linked and several very high ranking
Chinese officials have assured me that they totally understand is the
prosperity of HK in which they are interested. They have nothing to gain
whatsoever by anything which undermines or destroys our prosperity. On the
contrary they have everything to gain by it increasing. Having said that I
still think that the general tendency of these developments in China will be
to force us up market. I also think that one should not expect that the
development of China will be restricted to the lower end of the market.
There is a lot of very highly sophisticated and developed work going on
there.
Q. Do you have any idea where the proposed nuclear plant will be built?
A. There is a joint feasibility study being undertaken by China Light & Power
Guangdong Electricity Co and they are examining various sites. Of course a
prime consideration is safety but no site has yet been chosen as far as I know.
Q. Are you happy with a nuclear power plant being on the borders?
A. From what I know of these investigations nobody has suggested that it
should be on the border, but as I say safety is a primary consideration.
The very best expert advice is clearly desired by the Chinese authorities;
you can rest assured that neither they nor C L & P would agree to something
that wasn't safe.
Are you satisfied at the rate of departure of the Vietnamese boat people from here do you think countries accepting these refugees US for example could do better in accepting greater number of these refugees?
A. I think the Americans have done extraordinarily well as a matter of fact
they have been very good friends to us in all this. Of course I am not
satisfied, I would have liked more to have gone very much quicker, but the present numbers we have, about 38 000, and our expectation is that about 16 000 more will leave by the end of the year. This isn't anything like as
quick as we would like but I am immensely grateful for the excellent work of
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