TNAG-1821-FCO40-2584-Emigration-from-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 162

CONFIDENTIAL

SCR 10/2091/83

PAS(S)5

HUD 341/5

Emigration from Hong Kong Canada

I asked the Canadain Commissioner, Miss Doyle, to

call on 23 March. My request covered reports of the

conversation between the Canadian Finance Minister and

Hong Kong business people at the Davos conference, on

which there have been telegraph exchanges between ourselves, London and Ottawa. I also took the opportunity

to ask for more Canadian help with statistics.

2.

I thanked Miss Doyle for the statistics which the

Canadians are already supplying, stressed the importance

of Canada as a destination of emigrants from Hong Kong and

asked whether they could provide further information, with a breakdown of emigrants from Hong Kong to Canada by age,

education and occupation. I gave Miss Doyle some of our

own overall figures on emigration of university graduates

and student visas.

3.

I said that we remained concerned about the

demand pull effect from settlement countries. I knew that

the Commissioner herself appreciated the special problems

of Hong Kong and the need to take account of the value of

Hong Kong to Canada as an export market, etc. I mentioned

our High Commissioner's conversation with the Canadian

Finance Minister, noting that Mr Wilson had responded very positively. I hoped that everything possible would be done by the Canadians to avoid the impression that they were canvassing for immigrants from Hong Kong.

CONFIDENTIAL

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