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Fli
373
LAST
RC
Mr Grattan
(3) HKK 21 2973
taté
Grovelantale
In Strat. The Sendary of State has
Would you produce of short, amperrocative The P.R. 1 th Walian Summansing
seen. Conli munite to
The
HONG KONG MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM Wurse of
1.
events
smce early
Abvember?
You asked for a note on the occasions when the FCO or the
Governor or both had reminded the DTI of the need to improve the UK
or the Anglo/Italian bids on the mass transit system if they were to
have any hope of being validated. This is to refute any implication
31/X11
that the Governor made no effort to help the British bid, or that the
DTI were deceived about the chances of success.
2.
You will remember that during the summer the all-British
bid collapsed because they were not willing to meet the Hong Kong
Government's requirement of a fixed price. The Governor discussed this
when he was here in September and himself went to see Lord Aldington
urging him that GEC and the Italians should get together to produce
a viable bid. He acknowledged to the Secretary of State that in doing
so he was going outside his brief as Governor of Hong Kong. But he
thought it essential that action should be taken if the UK was to have
any share in the underground railway contract. The DTI were well aware
of the problem. I wrote to the Under-Secretary concerned in the DTI,
Mr Glaves-Smith, on 23 October urging him to arrange a meeting between
Mr Walker and Sir Murray. In the end this did not prove possible,
But Mr Walker met Mr Haddon-Cave, the Secretary of the Hong Kong
Mass Transit Steering Group, on 6 September. At this meeting
Mr Haddon-Cave explained the problem in detail. Mr Haddon-Cave also
spoke to Mr Denman of the DTI in Tokyo on 14 September. Lord
Thorneycroft sent a message to Mr Walker on 3 October saying that
unless the British group improved its bid to compare with the Japanese,
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it would be