TNAG-2716-FCO40-3922-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1993 — Page 71

3

To ensure that

6.

Hong Kong's position as a financial and Commercial centre is not damaged we have, since 1985, been negotiating free standing air services agreements with our aviation partners which will remain in force after 30

June 1997.

More recently, the Government

оп

embarked

negotiations with its main partners for agreements on

investment promotion and protection and for the surrender of

fugitive offenders. While it has been possible to sign a

We

number of bilateral agreements in each of these 3 categories,

progress has been slow.

have passed a good number of

initialled agreements to the Chinese side, in some cases as

long as 3 years ago.

The British side has also made

proposals to open negotiations with aviation partners outside

the original list of 24 countries. Similarly, we made proposals some time ago to open negotiations with additional

countries on investment promotion and protection and on

surrender of fugitive offenders.

7.

I would also like to mention that it is now some

considerable time since we put detailed proposals to the

Chinese side in the JLG оп mutual legal assistance in

criminal matters, visa abolition and reciprocal enforcement

It is

of judgments in civil and commercial matters.

important that we should be able to get on and negotiate suitable bilateral agreements with our main partners in these areas, so that a smooth transition may be assured.

8.

procedural

detailed

relationship

in

In December last year, the British side in the JLG

put forward

proposals for regulating the legal and Many important civil and commercial fields between the lling Kong SAR and the rest of China after 1997. we have explated to the Chinese side on a number of occasions the practical importance of taking this

work

forward but we have

progress.

που

to far been able to make any