fa
PS/President (Mr Loader)
from:
Alan Murray
OT2/2d
733 KH
215 5412
10 June 1992
cc Minister for Trade
Sir Peter Gregson
Mr Roberts
Mr Cooke
Mr Hall Oт1
Mr Meadway OT2 o.r.
Mr Robbins OT1
Mr Love OT2/2
Mr Green CU
Ms Chambers CU
Mr Warrick Inf Ms Caines Inf Mr Marre Inf Miss Gray OT2/2d Mr Szpala OT2/2d Mr Ricketts HKD, FCO Lady Strathnaver
in Stone
I don't think we need be drawn into this trassle!
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DRAFT SPEECH FOR THE DRAGON BOAT DINNER 11 JUNE 1992
Mr Warrick has sent me a copy of his draft speech under his minute of 10 June.
Whilst I am by no means committed to the text I submitted on 8 June, I believe that in certain key respects Mr Warrick's version is not quite right and in other areas the content is rather thin. My text of 8 June adopted the framework suggested in your minute of 4 June but also attempted to widen the scope of the President's speech. He will be the keynote speaker and this will be a sophisticated and very well informed audience.
My substantive comments are (references are to Mr Warrick's draft):
(a) 1st para, second sentence: there is no logical link between what Hong Kong buys from Britain and what it sells to the rest of the world. Also statistics on the latter are heavily distorted by the very great volume of reprocessing business which now figures in Hong Kong trade statistics.
(b) there is no reference to GATT and the Uruguay Round. This is a matter of great importance to Hong Kong and the audience at the dinner would be surprised if the President omitted any reference to it. Both the UK and Hong Kong pride themselves rightly on being great free trading economies and, as an aside, I was surprised that this linkage to which I drew attention in my draft has been dropped from the revised text (surely one of those areas of pride to which the President wanted to refer).
(c) p.4 last sentence: I strongly prefer my wording: "Hong Kong is now probably the most exciting place in the world for project business." "The world centre" is a different concept and probably not right.
(d) p.5 second para, last line: "construction" is otiose and, in any case, not right.
(e) p.5 third para et seq.: the passages on the UK's performance
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