TNAG-0959-FCO40-1178-Shipping-in-Hong-Kong-1982 — Page 53

or Commonwealth certificates. The United Kingdom was at that time prepared to make concessions regarding the nationality of these officers except the master; we were also prepared to consider accepting the award of Hong Kong certificates of competency to holders of foreign certificates without requiring them to undergo written examinations. The Hong Kong ship owners maintained that it would be difficult to find enough officers holding UK certificates and that equivalent foreign certificates should be accepted such as those issued by Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea. However the Department's study team concluded that many of the certificates alleged to be issued by the authorities concerned were forged or valueless and that written examinations would be necessary. no time was the Department prepared to envisage the use of foreign masters and we were extremely dubious about the proposal regarding foreign chief mates partly on security grounds.

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The second major problem concerned United Kingdom standards for approved materials and equipment. Much equipment was supplied by Japan and whilst it may have been up to convention standards it did not necessarily reach British standards. However in 1973 the United Kingdom, despite concern by CRE Divisions on the implications for home industry, was prepared to delegate type-testing to the Marine Department in Hong Kong re-inforced by a team of British surveyors seconded to the territory for an initial period of 2-3 years. The GCBS insisted that any concessions in respect of a separate Hong Kong register should also be afforded to ships on the UK register and this was, at that time, conceded. There was thus the likelihood that our standards would fall if a separate Hong Kong register was established.

THE UNIONS' ATTITUDE

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The unions opposed the Hong Kong proposal throughout. They were led by the NUS which enlisted the help of the International Transport Workers Federation (IF) in publishing a strongly worded Resolution in January 1974 condemning the proposal and threatening to treat ships registered in Hong Kong as not meeting the full United Kingdom standards as flag of convenience ships, with consequential industrial and financial penalties. The United Kingdom unions clearly feared the proposal would lead to loss of employment opportunities and exploitation of cheap labour in Hong Kong.