FR C Thomson Esq
NENAD
FCO
CONFIDENTIAL
297
нко
BRITISH EMBASSY
RABAT
4 June 1990
пс
Ar
Mr Mom's
340/1
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1 8 JUN 1990
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pa. Int Supp. (!) 36
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6/6
Dear Russell.
MOROCCO/HONG KONG
1.
As you know from our telegrams, the Moroccan Minister of State at the MFA, Moulay Ahmed Cherkaoui, paid a visit to Hong Kong at the beginning of May. The purpose of this visit has never been very clear to us. Though we have since had a request for assistance from the Moroccans in the appointment of an honorary consul in Hong Kong, we do not believe this to have been the only reason for his visit.
2.
What follows
This is highly speculative. A few months ago, at a squash match, I met a Hong Kong Asian who had recently started a successful business in Casablanca manufacturing jeans for export to the USA. To cut a long conversation short, he had long ago decided that Morocco, for fairly obvious reasons, would provide a good place to invest some of the capital he had in Hong Kong. He had dealt with the local bureaucracy himself, without a Moroccan partner, found it not too bad and thought it was improving. He believed that a number of other Hong Kong businessmen saw Morocco as interesting.
3.
Speaking to the Ambassador about the possible reasons for Cherkaoui's visit to Hong Kong, the US No.2 here speculated (clearly trying to draw us out) that the Moroccans, looking for foreign investment, might see an infusion of Hong Kong entrepreneurial skills as useful. Two weekends ago, at a party, a Danish businessman, quite unprompted, asked me if it was true that the Moroccans were trying to attract Hong Kong businessmen to Morocco. When the Ambassador called on Cherkaoui recently, he raised the subject. Cherkaoui claimed that no one had approached him while he was in Hong Kong but added that if anyone from the colony should do so, he would be listened to sympathetically.
/4.
CONFIDENTIAL
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