§ Lord Hyltonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will give details of the resettlement pledges given by participating governments at the recent conference in Geneva on refugees in South-East Asia, with particular reference to the Vietnamese now in Hong Kong.
§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)The following pledges were made at the Geneva Conference to resettle all those in the region with refugee status over the next three years:
1025WA According to UNHCR's latest estimate, the total number of Vietnamese refugees in the region awaiting resettlement is around 40,500, of whom nearly 14,000 are in Hong Kong. Apart from the UK, none of the other resettlement countries specified how many refugees they would take from Hong Kong, but both Canada and Australia said that they would pay particular attention to difficult and long-stayer cases, of whom a high proportion are in Hong Kong.
Australia 11,000 (plus an unspecified number of those still awaiting screening who are determined to be refugees) Austria 300 Canada 11,000 (plus some 4,000 of those awaiting screening who are determined to be refugees) France 4,400 Japan 1,000 Netherlands 1,000 New Zealand 600 Nordic Countries 4,000 Switzerland 300 United 2,000 Kingdom 22,000 USA 57,600