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advice from Washington on whom we should be speaking to in the US, and when, on this subject;
update by early next week the February summary of responses to our lobbying exercise, focussing in particular on Australia (how many Hong Kong people have made use of the provision which allows for postponement of settlement for eight years); Belgium (when their new scheme will be introduced); Canada (further details on their returning residents scheme - how much it is/might be used); Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Gibraltar, Philippines (probe further); send telegram to The Hague and Bonn to alert them that Mr Maude will want to talk in detail about this subject during his visits on 21 and 27 March - grateful if HKD would liaise with Mr Powell in ECD (I) on this; we will need to have the numbers of German and Dutch companies in Hong Kong. We should also send a telegram to Pretoria asking for the details behind recent newspaper reports of Hong Kong people going to South Africa.
- Mr Maude will consider at his next Hong Kong presentation meeting (20 March) how we can make best use of the low take-up figures for Singapore's scheme, ie that of 25,000 passports on offer only 94 additional Hong Kong people have actually moved from Hong Kong to Singapore.
Nicola Brawer
Nicola Brewer Private Secretary to Mr Francis Maude
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