NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
أبيد
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2.
5. We therefore welcome your alternative proposal
involving promissory notes. The arrangement could
equally attract publicity but it is not susceptible
of the dangerous inferences which must put the
previous suggestion out of court. The Hong Kong
Government see no difficulty in meeting your wish
that your bankers should receive payment in London
without further specific authorisation.
6.
There is one further point in your letter which
we must take up and that concerns your query as to how
the Hong Kong Government will satisfy Costains that
the firm will be paid if the contract cost exceeds
£10 million. As Cotterill will recall, Cowperthwaite
made the point that Costains, and the Tunnel Company,
must not be informed of any undertaking the Hong Kong
PO ECGD Government might give to accept responsibility for en-
suring that additional finance is available lest they
be encouraged to carelessness or extravagance by the
knowledge that the Hong Kong Government will foot the
resul tant bill. The risk that it may be divulged in
the course of necessary legislative processes is one
that the Hong Kong Government would have to take (and
we for our part assume that if Costains ask for some
such guarantee they will seek it, and get it, from the
Tunnel Company). The distinction between this risk
a
and the risk (mentioned in paragraph 4) of their
enforceable against their London assets
loan guarantee becoming known publicly, is that this
A
is a commercial one which the Hong Kong Government
can, however unwillingly, accept, whereas the latter
is a political risk quite unacceptable to them.
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