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026 /15
NOTE OF A MEETING BETWEEN MR MCLAREN AND A DELEGATION REPRESENTING
THE HONG KONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
1.
On 12 September Mr McLaren saw a delegation from the Hong Kong
General Chamber of Commerce comprising: Mr David Humann; Mr Peter
Wrangham; Mr JP Lee; and Brigadier Ian Christie.
2.
Brigadier Christie began by saying that since Mr McLaren had
already spoken with Mr Martin Barrow in the morning, he did not wish
to go over the same points that Mr Barrow would have already raised.
Instead he proposed to give some impressions the delegation had
gained from their visits to the DTI, the CBI and BOTB.
3. Brigadier Christie said that the main impression that had come
across was an ignorance in the business community here of the extent
of UK interests in Hong Kong and China and of the importance and
potential of the Asia Pacific region. Most companies were
concentrating on the home market and Europe post 1992. Brigadier
Christie asked whether the DTI, with support from the FCO, could do
more to persuade the UK's European partners to invest further in
Hong Kong. He mentioned that the UK's share of foreign investment
in manufacturing had slipped from fourth to seventh in the last few
years.
4.
Mr McLaren said that because the home market and the market in
the USA had been so good recently, it had been difficult to urge UK
firms to look further to the Asia Pacific rim. However he agreed
that this was one of the major growth areas for the future and that
Britain should do all it could to encourage investment there. He
also thought that it was necessary to stress more the advantages of
investing in Hong Kong rather than in China. He said that there
often were accusations that HMG was ready to sell Hong Kong short to protect its commercial interests in China. This was totally untrue.
Turning to the Right of Abode package Brigadier Christie suggested that while HMG seemed to be actively planning to do things
to assist political stability (eg right of abode assurances for key civil servants and police) it seemed to be doing less to promote
5.
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