TNAG-1630-FCO40-2246-Visits-by-Hong-Kong-Government-officials-to-China--the-UK-an-1987 — Page 15

New NCNA Office in Macau

3

CONFIDENTIAL

5.

They see this as an effort by the Chinese to improve

their expertise on Macau. The arrangement so far whereby

contact has been through the Nam Kwong Company reporting back, through the Hong Kong and Macau Office in Hong Kong, has not

worked very well. During the negotiations the Portuguese were

conscious that the Chinese were not sensitive to problems with a specifically Macau flavour. They have no views on how Zhou Ding and his staff of 100 will shape up but in general they think the new arrangements should be an improvement.

Implementation the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration

6.

Ratification will take place in October and the

exchange of instruments shortly thereafter. The composition of their JLG is likely to be announced at the time of the change.

It does not now seem likely that the Governor will lead the

Portuguese team. It is expected that a separate official of Ambassadorial rank will be appointed with the other members

coming from Lisbon and Macau. It is most unlikely that the

Governor himself will be a member. One possibility is the

Diplomatic Adviser Dr Gomes. The Portuguese are aware that

they face very serious problems in implementation up to 1999, although they see these as being more practical than political. Localisation of the administrative service, combined with the language problem, is the greatest headache. Allied with this is the complete absence from the legal service of local Chinese people and indeed, the great shortage of Cantonese practising lawyers generally. They are also trying

to face up to the question both of training local people in

Portuguese and Portuguese in Mandarin. I got the impression

that both were causing very considerable difficulties. They hoped to start sending people to Peking for language training before too long. But the rate of progress is likely to be very

slow.

CONFIDENTIAL

17.

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