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[LORD ENNALS.] better life are refugees, there would be no definition
geen af and all the guarant's provided for them since 1950 and supervised by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees would be lost. It is therefore right that the defination should be drawn.
Because Vietnamese citizens have for 10 years been permitted to be accepted as refugees on arrival in Hong Kong, one must try to understand their plight. In a sense they must still be treated as a special case. I was delighted to learn of the agreement reached in Geneva. It was exactly what had been recommended and hoped for. One of the first things I did after publishing our report was to have long discussions with UNHCR about how it would accept the responsibility. The United States' decision to come up with a genuine, orderly return programme after six months' strengthening of the voluntary programme was right for all concerned.
In our report we said that the most important issue was voluntary return. It is best if one can get people to do it because they want to do it. It is fascinating to note that some of the members of the group that we saw complained that they had been kept waiting. They all knew that they would go back to Vietnam. They did not complain about being back in Vietnam. They were complimentary about what had happened to them since they returned.
We have a major responsibility to help in the resettlement programme and to help boost the return programme. That means two things. As we said in our report, it means a major education programme in Vietnam which the Vietnamese Government are prepared to carry out. Much is already being done. Video material is now being prepared and I hope that it will be used with the help and backing which Britain can give to ensure that it is shown throughout Vietnam. Many organisations indicated that they would be ready to support that. It is essential that the message gets through to the camps in Hong Kong. I heard many people, including those whom we interviewed, say that they were not fully informed about the opportunity of volunteering to go back. The six-month moratorium which has been decided today is of great importance.
There is more that we can do to help those people who have returned. For example, the fishermen whom we interviewed went off their with their boats and came back without them. Vietnamese fisher families not only fish from their boats but live on their boats. If they do not have a boat, they have neither a job nor a place to live. That is the kind of aid that we can give them. We can help them with the money needed to make a boat. We can also help others, including farmers, agricultural workers and carpenters, with the tools of the job to enable them to settle back properly. If the British Government are responsive to the proposals made in our report and at the Geneva conference, a proper and effective solution might be found to the problem which is so sad for Vietnam, Britain and Hong Kong.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Sharp of Grimsdyke: My Lords, I wish to acknowledge most sincerely the courteous and
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gracious manner in which your Lordships received my admittance to your Lordships' House. I wish, toa, to acknowledge in 34.una the usual courtesy extended to one who is making his maiden specchi. I hope that your Lordships will accept that I have made strenuous efforts to sanitise my speech to ensure that I do not breach the convention which commands your Lordships' respect and attention.
It is in that spirit that I have to declare my special interest in the subject of this debate. I am chairman and chief executive of Cable and Wireless plc which currently owns 75 per cent. of Hong Kong Telecommunications Ltd., of which I am also chairman. Hong Kong Telecom provides Hong Kong's domestic and international telecommunications networks. It is Hong Kong's largest company with over 18,000 employees and a market capitalisation of over £4 billion.
Hong Kong is one of the world's most successful economies. It is in fact the eleventh largest trading territory in the world and little Hong Kong has achieved a level of exports nearly one-third of that of mighty Japan. Britain has a special role in Hong Kong as the sovereign power. That includes an obligation to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity up to 1997. But, apart from moral and legal obligations, I believe that is is in Britain's economic self-interest to help Hong Kong.
The list of British equipment bought by Hong Kong Telecom includes satellite earth station equipment, broadcasting towers, fibre-optic cables and pay telephones. Those purchases are part of the £1 billion a year of visible exports from Britain to Hong Kong. Moreover, the dividends that Hong Kong Telecom pays to Cable and Wireless are part of the £1 billion a year of invisible earnings which the UK derives from the services of all British companies operating in Hong Kong. Other examples are power generation equipment for the electricity companies, rolling stock for the mass transit railway, cranes at the container terminal and the structural steel for the Hong Kong Bank's magnificent headquarters building; all these have been bought from Britain.
Those exports have been achieved because of the considerble British commercial presence in Hong Kong. British-managed or controlled companies have a gross stock market value of £20 billion which is 40 per cent. of the Hong Kong stock market. That far outweighs any other national business influence in Hong Kong which is an excellent base for expansion of British influence in the Asia Pacific region before and after 1997.
I should like to speak briefly about the so-called brain drain which is one of the most serious problems facing Hong Kong today. Although many Hong Kong people were optimistic when the joint declaration was signed, emigration has since accelerated and the tragic events of last June make it likely that that trend will continue. I believe that there is very little disagreement on the reason for that emigration. People in Hong Kong fear uncertainty about the kind of lives that their families will have after 1997. They therefore seek the insurance policy of a foreign passport. At present, the only way to obtain one is
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