MOST expatriate civil servants who a year before the handover were undecided whether to continue serving the SAR, have chosen to retire.
Civil Service Bureau figures showed 255 of the 539 members of the former Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS) had stayed on.
But the remaining 53 per cent - many of whom were undecided before the handover - had gone.
They were asked by the Government to indicate by July 1996 whether they intended to stay, to help civil service planners make allowances for changes due to the handover and continued localisation.
At that time, only 199 people indicated they would leave.
The remainder said they would stay or were undecided.
The final wash-up shows three who originally wanted to stay have since quit, while most of those who said in 1996 they were undecided have opted to retire.
