Hong Kong

THERE will be none of the traditional popping of Champagne corks on

the first-class deck of a luxury passenger liner when Hong Kong's last

British financial secretary bows out next week.

Sir Hamish Macleod, speaking at a farewell news conference yesterday,

said he would leave on September 4 by air rather than sea, the option

chosen by most senior colonial servants.

He promised to return for the hand-over of Hong Kong to China at

midnight on June 30, 1997. ''We've booked a hotel room,'' he said.

At 55, Sir Hamish is taking early retirement to make way for a Hong

Kong Chinese successor, Donald Tsang, a friend and colleague who has

been groomed for the post.

''I think it will be a little more difficult,'' Sir Hamish, who joined

the Hong Kong government in 1966, said of Tsang's job.

Tsang has the 1997 transfer itself to weather. Beijing has yet to

announce whether it will reappoint the handful of civil servants put in

by the British to the top posts.

On the domestic front, Tsang, 50, will have to contend with an

increasingly politicised Legislative Council, a result of the new

pro-democracy reforms introduced by Governor Chris Patten.

The first all-elected council in Hong Kong's 150 year history will be

voted into office on September 17.

Sir Hamish, meanwhile, shrugs off the difficulties he faced in his

years at the financial helm of the world's eighth largest trading

territory.

Since he took over in 1990, Hong Kong's gross domestic product has

risen 25%, sending it up the per capita GDP ladder to rank 15th in the

world from 23rd five years ago.

''He's a canny Scot. Modest. His nickname is Sir Prudent. Ostentation

is not his style,'' said one colleague, who also described him as

''well-liked and respected by his staff even if he is better at tennis

than karaoke''.

In his role as financial secretary, the number three job in the Hong

Kong government, Macleod had to cope daily with China's fury and

suspicion of British rule in the countdown years.

Patten's arrival and his democratic reforms gave Beijing a political

stick with which to beat the British administration.

But the first, and most enduring symbol of Sino-British discord, was

an ambitious and expensive new airport and port project which Sir Hamish

has been in charge of since its inception in 1989.

China, apparently convinced Hong Kong planned to squander its vast

wealth on the #13bn project, attacked the plan almost from the start.

Early this year, after six years of wrangling and exhausting

negotiations, China finally gave its blessing. By that time, and despite

all the difficulties, the airport was more than 60% completed.

Sir Hamish plans to retire to Edinburgh, play tennis and keep himself

busy with a few non-executive directorships. He was careful to stress

they would be non-Hong Kong companies.

His name is one of 32 put forward for one of the seven World Trade

Organisation appellate posts responsible for arbitrating trade disputes.

''It would be very interesting,'' was all he would say.--Reuter.