Oh: Provisional Authority therefore asked the ConsortiumI for carpensation. At a meeting held on 9 January the Consortium refused to pay compensation, but offered a nominal iz matin payment of 300 million (cquivalent to about HX95 million), subject to curtain.conditions. The Government considered both the amounts and the conditions of this offer quite unacceptable and thereforC rojected it.
A spokesman for the Provisional Authority said today shas, in retrospect, three important pointcctand out in the negotiations with the Japanese Consortium. Minar, the Conscrtium's pre-emptive bid was accepted for a variety of reasons, the two most important of which were that it offered a price within the Government's ceiling price of #5,000 million without subsequent cost uscalation of any kind, and that it also hold out the possibility of an carly start and an early completion of the project (assumed for mid-1979). Neither of those advantages has naterialised through no fault of the Hong Kong Government or the Provisional Authority.
Sceond, the Japanese Consortium argued that their. difficulties stormed from certain unforeseen developments that had affected the Japanese economy as a result of the cil crisis in late 1973 and carly 1974. However, the fact remains that the effects of the oil crisis must have buen apparent to the Consortium during the period between the Hong Hong Government's acceptance of the Consortiun's pro-utęsive bid (11 December 1973) and the signing of the Ieuver of Intent (15 February 1974). The Provisional Authority had naturally assumed that these developments had been fully taken into account during the period prvc.ding the signing of the Letter of Intent. The Concostium could have withdrown or asked for modificatirzo
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