CONFIDENTIAL
По Намда
Entu
Die Haya y. O'Keeffe 24/4
训
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION IN HONG KONG
7th Floor, Shell House, Queen's Road, Central, Hong Kong Mail Address: P.O. Box No. 528, Hong Kong Cable Address: "Uktrade Hongkong"
Telephone-230176
pa
40
Our reference: 21/1(A) Your reference:
D Royce Esq
British Overseas Trade Board
Overseas Finance & Planning Division
Department of Trade
1 Victoria Street
London SWU OET
Dear Royce,
Lass Transit:
RECEIVED IN
REGISTRY Na 51
29 APR 1975
HKK 21/4
25 April 1975
RL.
44
While
I thought I should write to amplify para 4 of my telegram Creda 51. On his visit here, Lord Nelson asked me whether I thought there was an attitude amongst British civil contractors that doing work in Hong Kong resulted in being 'taken to the cleaners', the only people to gain being commercial interests in liong Kong and I told him I had heard that Costains had lost money on the Cross Harbour Tunnel, this being due partly to them having to sell, at a very considerable loss, a quarry they acquired to provide them with aggregate for the job. Taylor Woodrow, as far as I know, were quite happy with the Ocean Terminal project, the fact remains that the only two foreign civil contractors established here are Japanese and French. More recently, when talking to Sandberg of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, who is on the Finance Committee of the Mass Transit Provisional Authority, I took the opportunity to ask whether he knew of any prejudice on the part of British civil contractors towards doing work in Hong Kong. He told me that, after the completion of the Cross Harbour Tunnel, Costains had said that unless they were compensated to the tune of £1 million by the Tunnel Company to cover the loss they had made on the job, they would see that no British civil contractor ever did a job again in Hong Kong. The request was turned down abruptly and it seems very likely that this incident may have influenced the subsequent attitude of British civil contractors towards undertaking work in Hong Kong. The evidence is circumstantial, but Costains, you will recollect, became decidedly lukewarm about participation in the British consortium in the first round of Mass Transit and the timing suggests this arose out of the Crosa liarbour Tunnel argument.
2. The other thing I should mention is that I am particularly glad to see from Parry's letter O1G 300 of 17 April that there is ño intention of trying to put pressure on the Hong Kong Government to influence it in favour of British industry. I have no doubt
/whatsoever
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