TNAG-2149-FCO40-3068-International-Value-Added-Network-Services-(IVANS)-1990 — Page 48

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Our ref

Your ref

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Tony Wong Esq

dti

the department for Enterprise

Hong Kong Post Office Telecommunications Branch 5/F Sincere Building

173 Des Voeux Road Central Hong Kong

+44 1 215 8130

Date

4 August 1989

Dear Tory,

NR STRACE

5. Wisat

ว

14! }

3. IOB (F/477 HONG KONG

ARRANGEMENTS file a bin

Department of Trade and Industry

Kingsgate House 66-74 Victoria Street London SW1E 6SW

Switchboard 01-215 7877

Telex 936069 DTIKH G

Fax 01-931 0397

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS

I am sorry to have taken so long to reply to the points you put to me when we were in Nice; unfortunately, my travelling did not stop with the end of the Plenipot and I have only been able to arrange a meeting with the relevant FCO people in the last few days. However, I hope you will regard what follows as a helpful contribution to your thinking.

With regard to the essential question, from the answer to which all else flows, namely the extent of your authority, as the Hong Kong Post Office, to enter into an arrangement with a foreign Government in the particular context of the ITU regulations, the FCO view is that insofar as the result was document signed by both parties (ie the Hong Kong Post Office and the MPT in Japan), there is no doubt that you would require authority from here to proceed. We see no difficulty in that authority being provided, which could be a general entrustment to make arrangements in this field, rather than one specific to the Japanese arrangement, subject to the further discussions that you and I need to have in any event about the attitude of Cable & Wireless to your ideas.

But your concern was the precedential effect of having to act on the basis of authority from London in relation to the situation after 1997.

I have discussed this in some detail with the FCO. First of all, they are clear that you cannot be simply regarded as an internal organ of the UK Government having the responsibility to discharge the rights and obligations of the International Telecommunications Convention. Although you drew to my attention Article 9.1 of the International Telecommunication

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