TNAG-2078-FCO40-2958-Hong-Kong-culture-1990 — Page 97

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5. I was generally impressed with their approach to making

the presence of the British Council felt more and to a

realism in the amount of work they can do. They are making

requests for a further £600,000 for teaching in the science

and technology fields and of course the £900,000 for the English language teaching programme. They were enthusiastic about Hong Kong business participating the projects and said that the Hong Kong bank had recently given 20 million Hong Kong dollars for projects related to language training.

6. On the arts side, there is currently an exhibition of "16 master works" which the BC would like to come to Hong

Kong after Argentina. This would enable it to come to the

opening of the new Museum of Art which is scheduled for

September 1991. Mr Elam in CRD is dealing with this and BC have promised to let us see side copies. Mr Buchanan also

mentioned that BC would like to be involved in the Britain

in Brussels exhibition in the Autumn of 1992. He further

said that as a result of the coming of the single market in 1992 the BC were now cooperating with representatives from

France, Germany and the other EC countries and he thought that building a EC platform could be politically useful in

the context of 1997. They are now looking for joint workshops in the arts and hope to get some new money for

some EC related drive.

7.

We touched on the question of the nationality package and David Lee, their Chief Administrator, spoke forcefully about the staff feelings at not being included in some way as a sensitive service or having a quota within the scheme. Both Mr Buchanan and Mr Lee spoke strongly of the fact that the majority of staff had worked for the British Council for over 10 years and that it would be impossible to keep them if nothing was done under the Nationality package.

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