APPENDIX (1)
BARRIE WIGGHAM/AUST PAGE 11
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NOTE: Not appearing in above programme is a meeting at 10.30.am Wednesday 28/2 with Commonwealth Bank hosted by Bill Holdsworth, Chief Manager International and attended by Adrian Walker, General Manager, International and David Murray, Financial Controller. This was a private meeting refer Barrie Wiggham.
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CANBERRA: Thursday 1/3, 9.15.am 4.pm. Programme arranged by Department of Foreign Affairs. Includes discussions with Penny Wensley, round-table with departmental officials as per itinerary and discussions with officials from Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. These were private meetings - refer Barrie Wiggham.
CANBERRA: Thursday 1/3: 4.30.pm: Metal Trades Industry Association
hosted by Derek Buckland, National Director, Operations (he flew from Sydney for the briefing), Bernard Trevanion, Assistant Director, Trade & Commercial Services, and Dr Ian Davies, who is on secondment from Austrade as Manager-MTIA China Program.
Travenion made the point that MTIA members (they have 7,000) had been disappointed in China and some were looking to pull our of Hong Kong because Board executives in Australia were reluctant to wait long-term for promised profits when money could be made now elsewhere. Trevanion wanted an assessment of the outlook for business.
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All three had been in China recently. Buckland said that, an organisation, MTIA had had an ongoing relationship with Chinese official groups over a number of years. Despite this, they were also involved with Taiwan (on November 1989 trip Buckland and Trevanion had flown from Taiwan to Hong Kong to China) and a major MTIA initiative was proposed. They did not see that this would upset the Chinese.
Davies said the MTIA had been informed by the Chinese that China was unhappy about the Hong Kong infrastructure projects because British firms would get the lion's share of work. Barrie Wiggham was able to set them right on this point.
The point was made that MTIA members were eager to get into tenders for PADS projects, particularly for supply of materials and sub-contracting areas, and would be happy to go into these with Mainland Chinese partners.
The meeting lasted 75 minutes longer than planned and could easily have continued. They appeared poorly briefed on the existing Hong Kong/China situation with regard to both 1997 and investment levels. Expressed ken interest in receiving more regular information and having some form of contact with the Hong Kong Government, although they already have ongoing contact with the Industry Department, Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Chinese Chamber of Commerce etc.
They asked if they could assist Hong Kong in any way in putting particular positions to the Australian government.
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