Draft Addition to Paragraph 19 of OPDO(DR)(69) 1
Note: The gross figures quoted above give the actual running costs
of the forces deployed in Hong Kong. They are not the same
as the money which would be saved if the commitment were
abandoned. This saving would depend on decisions taken at
the time on the disposal of the forces released and on any
consequential changes in provision for supporting facilities,
e.g. communication and transport. As foreshadowed at
OPD (68) 11th Meeting, it is only possible to give a range of
figures of possible savings; this has since been assessed at
£10-40 million a year. The Ministry of Defence consider that
in practice the achievable savings would fall well short of the
higher figure. 7