TNAG-2297-FCO40-3321-Hong-Kong-International-Rights-and-Obligations-(IRO)-Sub-Gro-1991 — Page 64

сс

Immediate to

M.

Scifity

i'r of

میری عالی

Say, Jules, this

WW

double dutt

Mz 21

h

Me

NRi

Natural Resources Institute

Mr J Evans

Environment, Science and Energy Department Foreign & Commonwealth Office

London

SW1A 2AH

23 May 1991

н

HKC031/1

p.a.

33

Central Avenue

Chatham Maritime

Kent ME4 4TB

United Kingdom

Telephone: National 0634 880088 International 44 634 880088

GTN: 3593

Fax: 0634 880066/77

Telex: 263907/8 LDN G

Telegrams: NRI Chatham

Overseas Development Administration

Dear Mr Evour.

HONG KONG AND INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS/AGREEMENT POST 1997

PLANT PROTECTION AGREEMENT FOR THE SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC REGION

1. Please accept my apologies for not replying earlier to your letter of 16 April.

2. My own peripheral involvement with the APPPC began when I attended the 14th meeting in Jakarta in 1985. I was then under the impression I was representing ODA/NRI and was subsequently surprised and embarrassed to learn that the secretariat assumed I was representing Hong Kong.

3. Following the meeting I strongly recommended that HMG should consider the future of its position as a founder member of the APPPC. It was subsequently agreed, in 1989, that direct UK participation in the activities of the APPPC were no longer warranted and that all future meetings should be attended by Hong Kong Government representatives. copy of a letter from ODA's UN Department to our representative at FAO which sets this out.

I enclose a

4. One of the issues that arose at the 14th meeting was the application by China to become a member. This had been agreed

by the Commission but required ractification by member governments. I recommended that HMG should ratify China's membership. I understand that this was subsequently done, although in a report I saw recently of the 16th meeting it would appear that only the UK and one other country have so far ratified China's membership. I presume this is the result of bureaucratic inertia rather than to objections in

principle.

Development through science