TNAG-1406-FCO40-1881-Future-of-Hong-Kong-passports-and-visas-1985 — Page 141

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

Telephone 01-

A JH Ramsay Esq British Embassy MEXICO CITY

GWMEX /341/1

Your reference

Our reference

20 AUG 1983

Date

GVV MEX/34 /1

20 August 1985

INDEX

1

Dear Mr Ramsay

VISA REQUIREMENTS ON BRITISH DEPENDENT TERRITORY CITIZENS (BDTC)

1. Since Migration and Visa Department are responsible for visa abolition arrangements either by formal agreement or informal understanding we are coordinating the response to the Mexican imposition of a visa requirement on BDTCs. If the complaints we have received from the Government of Hong Hong are accurate the Mexican policy (at least as judged by the actions of their Consulate- General in New York) has been applied in a clumsy manner.

2.

The current (1959) bilateral visa abolition agreement (VAA) with Mexico, which came into effect on 1 January 1960, is of a variety which did not include the Dependent Territories (DT) although it was extended to the then British Honduras on 1 March 1963. Copies of both VAAs are enclosed for ease of reference. Whatever the reasons were for excluding the DT then it is now our policy, so far as is possible, that all holders of British passports benefit equally from visa abolition arrangements.

Our

3. The ideal solution to this problem would be to offer the Mexicans a revised agreement set out in terms of the British Nationality Act 1981, to replace the 1959 agreement. Unfortunately, for technical reasons, there is no immediate prospect of this. passport policy is in a state of flux owing to constitutional developments in Hong Kong and to a mass of complex problems connected with the introduction of the common format passport (cfp) bỷ the United Kingdom and look alike cfp by the Dependent Territories and we cannot yet produce a list of passports whose holders we would wish to be exempt from a visa requirement. We are, however, under considerable pressure from Bermuda and Hong Kong to obtain visa free entry for their BDTC to Mexico (and certain other countries who have acted similarly to the Mexicans) and cannot wait until the cfp related problems are solved.

CONFIDENTIAL

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