TNAG-1801-FCO40-2561-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-resettlement-in-the-UK-1988 — Page 140

COZABH

ANNEX

CONFIDENTIAL

W34

A NEW COMMITMENT: DETAILED OPTIONS

HKD 243/12:

*AR 1988

1.

An outright additional commitment

(a)

L

a continuation of the present family reunion scheme. The

Hong Kong Government believe that once the 70 vacancies in

the existing commitment of 468 are "back-filled" about

200 additional refugees would still meet the family

reunion criteria. Of them about 156 arrived in Hong Kong

before the cut-off date of the 22 October 1986 used for

the 468 but for unknown reasons were omitted from the

original list. The additional 200 would come in at 20 per

month after the initial 468 have arrived here.

(b)

an additional commitment of 10 a month, or 240 over a

two-year period from about now: this could be drawn from:

(i) the UK refusal cases. There are 133 in all, of whom

30 would be caught under (a) above (they should in fact

have been included in the list of 468). This leaves about

100 additional cases;

(ii)

long-stayers;

(iii) refugees selected because they have particular

skills which would be useful to us.

-

long

Such a commitment would build on existing/past

commitments, and would add two new categories

stayers, which would be of particular assistance as an

example to others, and those with skills which would be a

good selling-point domestically. We have in fact been approached by employers impressed with performance of existing Vietnamese employees and anxious to recruit more.

To some extent, these could be notionally offset against

"shortfalls" under the RAS RO scheme, (for the resettlement

of Vietnamese refugees rescued at sea). We have a

commitment to accept 150 per year, but only took 83, 58 and 53 in the last three years.

CONFIDENTIAL