TNAG-2056-FCO40-2934-Hong-Kong-and-the-Organisation-for-Economic-Cooperation-and--1990 — Page 25

believe are the Cayman Islands.

The position of Hong Kong is unique

The remaining DTS will, I

and that is being handled separately.

presume, wish to continue as

wish to continue as now and not become involved.

4.

Ideally we would wish to be able to categorically state that those

DTS who are not mentioned in the declaration of 5 July fall outside

the scope of OECD. If that were an acceptable approach, we could

straight forwardly notify OECD's Legal Services. But I appreciate that

some DTs may want to keep options open and to be able to review the

position at some future point in the light of economic development

and other circumstances.

This is fair enough but I doubt that the

C

Secretariat or OECD members would for long tolerate accession in dribs

and drabs over an unspecified period. Sooner or later someone is

bound to insist on a once and for all step. That, I think, would be a reasonably expectation and indeed we had hoped that the recent

declaration could have been a one off exercise.

I suggest that the

way forward, for the time being at least, is that we should inform the

OECD that those DTs not covered by the July declaration should be

deemed to be outside the provisions of the OECD Convention and

Instruments, and at the same time ensure, without making an explicit

point of it, that the exclusion would not bar accession at a future.

date. We should then let a decent period to elapse, say five or ten

years, before undertaking another review.

Consideration could then be