LL
DRAFT ARTICLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
1.
On 30th June 1997, British administration will
end in Hong Kong.
2.
-
We need to be clear, then, what we want to achieve over the next five years
and the kind of Hong Kong we want to see when China resumes sovereignty in the summer of 1997.
3.
I have but one aim as Governor; to safeguard Hong Kong's way of life, the way of life which has enabled Hong Kong's remarkable, dynamic people to turn this place from a barren, rocky outpost into an economic wonder of the world.
4.
Come to Hong Kong today and you will find it impossible not to be optimistic about the future.
5.
Like the rest of Asia, and unlike the rest of the world, Hong Kong is booming. Our forecast growth for this year is 5% (not the sort of forecast civil servants in the UK or US Treasury are accustomed to making!). Go anywhere in Hong Kong and you see the biggest this, the newest that; scarcely a day goes by without a new building being opened, topped out or begun. Hardly the signs of a community entering its twilight years! And over the border in Guangdong, still more remarkable developments are happening, developments which bode very well for Hong Kong. Economic reform in Southern China is lifting millions of people out of poverty. Free trade, as it always is, is on the side of progress. Hong Kong
at the crossroads of Asia and the gateway to China
-
right at the heart of this process.
Between them,
Guangdong and Hong Kong now account for approaching a third of China's GDP.
SECRET
-
is
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.