TNAG-1406-FCO40-1881-Future-of-Hong-Kong-passports-and-visas-1985 — Page 111

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the Royal Emblem and 'Passport' and the wording on the inside

cover would be 'Her Brittanic Majesty's Secretary of State'

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c) Timing

If we are producing a machine readable passport then because of

the demands of computerisation UK offices will not start to make

the new passports available until mid 1988 and issuing from all

offices will not be achieved until 1990. FCO will be no earlier

but they have yet to advise us how they would handle their

introduction from consular posts. It is possible that HMSO may

be able to produce sufficient stocks of the passport for use in

Hong Kong in 1987 and that, because they already have

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considerable experience with the computeised issue of identity

cards, Hong Kong would be in a position to produce the passports

in 1987. If the passport is not to be machine readable we would

aim to issue it from all offices in 1987 and we would expect

Hong Kong to do the same.

out the propied

7. Hong Kong have indicated that they would wish the new format to

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be introduced for BN (0) passports when the UK introduces the change

but the

ok to be of toxo

generally Whether if they were in the position by a matter of

months to issue these ahead of us there would be advantage in doing

so, can be considered nearer the time. The July 1987 introduction of BN (0), status does not allow much time however and the probability is that intitially BN(0)s will receive the same traditional hard

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blue cover passport in Hong Kong, in the UK and from overseas

posts. Thereafter there will be a mix of the old and new for some

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