(XFN-ASIA) - Christopher Hill, the lead US negotiator on North Korea, is in Hong Kong for talks on the latest efforts to freeze the financing of the Pyongyang regime, officials said. Assistant secretary of state Hill was meeting US consular staff and holding private talks with local officials on Washington's clamp on money laundering thought to be funding dictator Kim Jong-Il's illicit nuclear programme. 'He will be discussing issues -- including North Korean links with Macau banks -- with people on the ground familiar with the situation,' US consulate spokesman Dale Kreisher told Agence France-Presse without divulging the diplomat's schedule. 'He is just having some private meetings,' Kreisher said when asked which local officials Hill would be meeting. The US consulate here covers Macau. Macau's Banco Delta Asia has been pinpointed as a link in the laundering of funds to North Korea, prompting the US Treasury last year to urge the Macau government to freeze the lender's assets. The Treasury in September labelled the Macau-based bank a 'primary money laundering concern' and then blacklisted eight North Korean companies in connection with the bank that it said were involved in spreading weapons of mass destruction. Pyongyang denies the charges and has cited the sanctions in its refusal to join the next round of nuclear talks with the US and other regional players, including China, aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme.