J
CONFIDENTIAL
布政司署
香港下亞畢道
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
** oui REF:
SCR3/1916/58
來函檔號 YOUR REF:
BY BAG
ник
مناع
Der Patuck
P J Williamson Esq
HKGD
F CO
DES
INDEX
14 August 1981
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LAST PAPER
China's Investment in Hong Kong
below
You may be interested to see the enclosed copy of an extract from "Asian Finance" on 15 June which tabulates recent purchases by China of land in Hong Kong for residential and commercial development.
2.
The article includes an estimate of HK$4,000 million invested in "commerce and real estate" in the last four years, with HK$3,000 million in the last two. Useful as it is to have such an estimate, the figures should be treated with great caution. The data from which Asian Finance's list is drawn seems almost exclusively from press reports (and Government Information Services' "China News Reports" which you will have seen). Add to this the fact that purchases of land are often made by individual agents rather than the named companies that many sites and offices are rented rather than bought and that a number of investments are made in partnership with other, non- Chinese companies, and the picture is an extremely complicated
one.
3.
The list covers mainly purchases of land, but also refers to investments in its development. The investment in development (which would include premium payments for changes
pay in land use as well as construction costs) is still more difficult to assess. If all such investments are included, however, the estimate of HK$4,000 million will fall far short of the mark. I have seen other, unsupported, claims in the press that these investments bring the figure well up to HK$10,000 million.
Yous
ever
lita
(P I Webb)
Assistant Political Adviser II
cc w/encls.
AR Paul Esq
FED FCO
J V Everard Esq PEKING
D1 73c
MOD
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