TNAG-2765-FCO40-3982-UK-Hong-Kong-Scholarship-Scheme-donation-to-the-UK-Governme-1993 — Page 55

Overseas Trade Services

J Smith-Laittan Esq British Trade Commission Hong Kong

Direct line.

071-215 6762

HC108

Our ref. ECO 285/4

Your ref

Date 25 October 1993

Dear James

No. I'm apailuot

Ms Sapindos (fr)

I have not seen

J-SU's

hello &

27 sept. Hewe you?

Ros 2111

Pa Schoo

Telex

Department of Trade and Industry

Ashdown House 123 Victoria Street London SW1E 6RB

Enquiries 071-215 5000

8813148 DIHQ G

Fax 071-828 3258

KLB 285/1.

RECE

ESTRY

1

NOV 1993

STRY

.ሉ.

A

90)

CBI OVERSEAS SCHOLARSHIPS SCHEME

I am very sorry not to have replied much earlier to your fax of 27 September. It is disappointing to hear that you are continuing to have difficulty in finding suitable candidates for the above Scheme. In fact, your experience is not unique in this respect. The British Council in Edinburgh who administer the Scottish International Resource Project (SIRP) have also encountered difficulties similar to yours. (SIRP is designed to enable mature

overseas post graduate students studying in Scotland the opportunity of undertaking short working attachments with Scottish companies). The Council have only managed to place one Hong Kong Chinese student over the two year duration of the scheme. Others have been screened but have lost interest once they have been told of the limits of the financial support available.

Turning to your suggestion to offer scholarships to Industrial Centre staff, it would be useful to have further details about this organisation before making any firm decision. While we would wish to adopt a flexible approach in order to attract candidates from Hong Kong, I think we must insist nevertheless that the scholars in question hold an engineering degree, and have had a year's engineering experience - two of the principal conditions of assistance. More subjectively, we would also expect the candidates to make, or are likely to be in a position to make, procurement decisions which could be of benefit to UK industry, rather than holding academic positions having little or no exposure to local business and commerce.

APEMON03.07

dti

the department for Enterprise

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