A
HONY THORNE
Chartered Accountant
18th February 1991
Lord Caithness
Minister of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London
Dear Lord Caithness
Raml, Hes)
ни)
Draft reply per.
jut Tim
3, The Pheasantry Down Ampney
Cirencester
Gloucestershire GL7 5RE
Telephone
Swindon (0793) 751177
CC MR PAUL
૯૯
MrStone 20/2 Ms Coglin
--for early action
I am writing to you personally with an urgent appeal for something to be done quickly for Hong Kong Civil Service pensioners whose pensions are losing value as I write, continuing a trend which started over five years ago.
In 1988 I wrote to the Hong Kong Government, and later that year to Nicholas Ridley my MP, who elicited a response from Chris Patten, then Minister of Overseas Development Administration, on the problems facing Hong Kong pensioners in the light of the serious and sustained fall in the value of the Hong Kong dollar. I recently took the matter up again with the ODA.
The replies I received while sympathetic were unhelpful, no hope being offered or held out for any immediate changes in the present
arrangements for maintaining the purchasing power of overseas pensions under the SPOS scheme.
I understand that the Overseas Pensioners' Association and some individual or groups of Hong Kong pensioners have made similar representations over the last several years, again apparently without any success.
I have no means of knowing whether the distress the falling Hong Kong dollar/sterling exchange rate is causing former Hong Kong civil servants is known to you personally so I outline my own case, which is not untypical, to assist your better understanding of the situation.
I retired in January 1981, when the exchange rate for determining my sterling pension under Regulation 17(1)(b) of the Overseas Service (Pensions) Supplement Regulations 1977 (as amended) was HK$12.427. The current exchange rate is HK$15.40, a reduction of over 24%. My present pension of HK$14610 a month, converted at the official rate for SPOS purposes, would amount to £14108 a year. By way of contrast, the current sterling value of my pension is £11384, a loss in purchasing power of £2724 a year.
Cont'd...page 2
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