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The Governor's position is that he is a strong supporter of the JFS and in principle he would favour its continuation. But he accepts the practical problems raised by officials here. Your letter also alerted us to the prospect that the UK end could not necessarily guarantee the flow of funds indefinitely for its share of the costs of the Scheme. The position we have reached at the Hong Kong end in the light of all these considerations is that the Scheme should be continued but only for one further year i.e. that the start of the phasing-out process should be postponed until 1994/95. The logic of this is that students starting three-year degree programmes in that year would have completed their studies by June 1997.
This proposition will need to be cleared through ExCo. It would therefore be helpful to know whether FCO funds can be relied upon to cover the (reducing) liability implied by this extended phasing-out proposal. Clearly it would be embarrassing if the Governor were to promote this particular proposal to ExCo and funds were then found not to be available to cover the UK share. know from past experience with similar issues in ODA how difficult it can be to predict the future availability of funding. But an FCO commitment to the effect that Hong Kong would be given a priority call on scholarship funds available to ensure cover for JFS places up to 1997 would be very helpful.
meantime
I look forward to your reaction on this.
Merry Christmas!
Вег
Ben wõnes
Matin
(M.J. Dinham)
Personal Adviser to the Governor
In the
Mr. P.F. Ricketts
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Department London
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CODE 18-77
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