CONFIDENTIAL
spread over a period suitable to the Hong Kong Government.
It was also thought that in the event of HMG deciding against
offering a route Copenhagen-Hong Kong to SAS there might be
advantage in making available to Hong Kong the ATCRS from aid
funds as a sweetener. The offer of a route to SAS has,
however, been made and although the Scandinavians have
accepted the route offered as "commercially viable" they
consider it "commercially unattractive". The refusal of the
Scandinavians even to consider the question of an aviation
quid pro quo has entailed indefinite adjournment of the talks.
Delays on a decision on the ATCRS, therefore, appear no longer
justified in this connection.
These
4. There are political grounds for providing an ATCRS.
are principally because it would show interest by HMG in
helping development, to a small degree, of Hong Kong's airport
at Kai Tak. Whilst HMG of course, controls air traffic rights
into Kai Tak, the latter has been built, expanded and
maintained at Hong Kong Government expense (apart from an
interest-free loan of £3 million made by HMG in 1956 for the
extension of the runway). Other requests by the Hong Kong
Government for aid for the airport have never got off the
ground largely because Hong Kong has never fitted into our
criteria for aid owing to the buoyancy of her economy and the
strength of her own resources.
5. Political grounds for providing aid for the airport are no different now from those thought insufficient in the past.
It
is unlikely in the present economic climate in this country and
in the aftermath of the Hong Kong Government's decision on the
/underground
A
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