TNAG-1408-FCO40-1883-Future-of-Hong-Kong-passports-and-visas-1985 — Page 35

persons who are connected with Hong Kong, since such a

connection is a prerequisite to the acquisition of BN (0)

status. If it were not for the unique circumstances

connected with Hong Kong's future and the fact that

passports issued in the name of the Governor would be

unacceptable to the Chinese after Hong Kong reverts to

their sovereignty, HMG would not be involved at all in

the issue of passports to BN 10)$$ IN Hong Kong.

C

3. Under the present arrangements the Hong Kong

Government charges and retains a fee which is the local

currency equivalent of about £20 for a passport.

Under

the new arrangements we shall be asking them to charge

£15 per passport (ie the current fee for a UK passport as

laid down in the Consular Fees Order).

Since it costs

the Hong Kong Government about £8 to issue a passport

the surplus revenue per issue would therefore be reduced

from £12 to £7. Since the Hong Kong Government at

present issues about 130,000 passports per year, its

annual surplus revenue from passport work is about £1.56

million and it can reasonably expect that an income of

this sort of order should continue. At the reduced £15

fee, Hong Kong would have to increase its volume of

annually

passport issues to over 220,000 to maintain the existing

level of surplus revenue. It is very difficult to

estimate at this stage whether the increase in demand

will be sufficient to reach this level. There are about

3.25 million residents of Hong Kong who will be eligible

for the BN (0) passports between 1987 and 1997 and most

of these are expected to take up the entitlement.

On

will be more