rely on drawing to the berth.
This seems inconsistent with the wish
apparently expressed by the Hong Kong Government to exclude speculative
operators from consideration. The figures given in Mr Oyama's letter to the British Commercial Counsellor in Tokyo (of which a copy is attached), which
asserted that his company had been constantly securing the largest share in the Japan/Hong Kong service for the past 5 years, that its loading share was
at present nearly 40% of all loading cargoes for Hong Kong and that what it loaded and discharged there corresponded to about 40% of the required final
capacity of the container berth for which they were bidding, seem to be difficult to substantiate for what is a small company thought by OCL to be largely concerned with transporting timber between Hong Kong and Borneo.
4.
OCL suspect that Oyama has bid high in the expectation of drawing
to his terminal very substantial business from other lines, including Japanese lines in the Far Eastern Freight Conference, or of selling out to OCL at an
even higher price. The first expectation is to some extent discounted by
the recently renewed assurance by OCL's Japanese partners in the Conference
that they will not act independently of OCL(even though one of them, NYK, has a very small shareholding in the Oyama Shipping Company). However, Oyama
obviously has highly placed connections; if he detached the Japanese confer- ence lines, OCL's needs would be reduced from 2 to about 12 berths which would
make them dependent on Oyama if indeed they could find enough capacity. The
second contingency could be forced on OCL in due course at considerable
cost to the new integrated container service between Europe and the Far East
and at the serious risk of delaying and impeding the smooth introduction of
the service and utilization of Hong Kong's terminal.
5. OCL assure us that they are unable to solve the problem of efficiently
handling the new service without a second berth adjacent to their No 1
berth. Moreover, the No 4 berth, for which in the end no bids were made,
would be unsuitable because, being in deeper water, it would cost nearly
twice as much to construct and because it is not adjacent to their No 1 berth (as Oyama's No 2 berth is).
6.
The case is somewhat complicated by the known pressures in Hong Kong
to make adequate provision for "common user facilities" for other lines (mostly European) who will not be using either the OCL or the Sea-Land berth,
It is possible that Oyama is relying on such traffic and that the Hong Kong
Government would welcome this prospect as well as the high price he is paying
them for the berth.
OCL's Proposition
7.
It is obviously out of the question to ask the Hong Kong Government
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