KOW/MBC(1933)L
COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
21st February, 1969
34
Kowloon Motor Bus Company
G
Thank you for your letter CRE. 241850 of 7th February.
The present clauses in the franchise are open ended in that the bus companies must use British or British Commonwealth buses but nevertheless
2.
"If for any reason whatsoever, the Company deems it
necessary or expedient to use in connexion with the grant any vehicle not of British or British Commonweɛl th manufacture the Company may apply to the Governor in Council for permission to use such vehicle and the Governor in Council may grant such permission upon such terms as he shall think fit.
#
I should be surprised if Hong Long Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office agreed with Kr. Caton's idea
Politically that the Colony should be instructed to Buy British. this would arouse a great storm here at a time when the United Kingdom's name is adversely connected with the questions of the Tunnel and the Kai Tak Runway extension.
3. I think our best chance of retaining the bus business is to go about it in the way Leylands are tackling it, 1.8. to lobby all concerned in Hong Kong on the virtues of British buses, and the good service they have given and the advantages of retaining the connection. Our export business to Hong Kong must surely be built on the intrinsic merits of our exports, and not on an imperial relationship which site more and more uneasily out here.
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As to the Taiwan connection I hear that Mr. Louey has a concession for a bus company there, and there are rumours that in return for the right to sell buses to his Taiwan Company Mr. Louey hs been offered buses for Hong Kong on 10 year credit terms. This may be true, but somehow I think it is all part of the psychological campaign, and has not much relationship to reality.
J. E. Gowers, 48q.,
Board of Trade,
Commercial Rations and xports Department,
1, Victoria Street,
London SW1.
LAST
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