TNAG-2349-FCO40-3418-Political-relations-between-Hong-Kong--China-and-the-Europea-1991 — Page 13

N Cox Esq

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Hong Kong DepartmentEIVED ·

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Your reference

Our reference

30 JUL 19

Date

4 July 1991

J24/7

Dear Nigel,

HONG KONG: INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

1.

Correspondence on this appears to rest with my teleletter of 21 May 1990 to Ros Marsden, though John Hague sent to Peter Sullivan on 14 June 1990 a paper for the Dutch on the then state of play.

2.

When I called on van Tooren (Director for Asia and Oceania, MFA) to inform him about the MOU on the airport, I took the opportunity to ask whether the Dutch have made any progress over the eventual acceptance of Hong Kong residents in this country. He said that agreement had virtually been reached on a limited programme under which Dutch companies active in Hong Kong would be able to bring key Hong Kong personnel to the Netherlands for training and familiarisation. They would be permitted to remain here for periods of a year, though their residence terms would be indefinitely renewable for periods of a year at a time. The scheme had already been agreed among Dutch Ministries and would come into force soon. However its scope naturally depended on the interest of companies in taking it up, and this was still under discussion with the companies themselves. Overall, van Tooren thought that the numbers involved would be less than a thousand.

3. Van Tooren recognised that this was a much more limited scheme than we had originally envisaged, but nevertheless made it clear that agreement on even this basis (which involved no fresh legislation but only creative interpretation of existing rules) had not been easy. In any case, he hoped that the immediate pressure for support for HMG was less than it had been.

4. I asked whether there would be any publicity for the scheme, arguing that confidence among the firms and individuals concerned was one thing, but that public knowledge of such measures had a value of its own. Van Tooren took the point, and undertook to think about it, but thought it would not be easy to go public for the moment at least.