:
K M Odell Esq
Balfour Beatty Limited
Marlowe House
109 Station Road
Sidcup
Kent DA15 7AU
Dear Ken
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY
I VICTORIA STREET
'LONDON SWIH GET
TELEPHONE DIRECT LINE 01-218 5015
SWITCHBOARD 01-215 7877
9 June 1977
t
HONG KONG PROJECT
This letter seeks to bring you, and other interested companies, up to date with recent developments in respect of this project.
At John Lippitt's meeting last Thursday, we agreed the text of a telegram which might be sent to Hong Kong. Following the meeting, we had discussions about the text with Treasury officials, as a result of which we accepted two drafting changes. First, the reference to ECGD facilities was amended to make it clear that we would be offering favourable' rather than 'especially favourable' terms: this amendment has obvious tactical advantages. Secondly, the Treasury wished us to make it clear that buyer credit arrangements for projects of this size were now denominated in US dollars. We took account of this suggestion by inserting a new sentence before the reference to Hong Kong dollars.
The amended text was approved by Mr Alan Williams, Minister of State at this Department, and was submitted that evening to the Prime Minister. We heard next morning that the Prime Minister had approved the text but that he had suggested that the telegram should make it clear that he had personally seen and approved the proposals we were putting to Sir Lawrence Kadoorie. The telegram was sent to the British Trade Commissioner in Hong Kong on Friday afternoon: I attach a copy of the telegram in the form in which it was handed to Sir Lawrence. Separate to this, I sent a telegram indicating that John Lippitt would like to lead a Department of Industry/British industry team to Hong Kong in the week beginning 20 June and that David Geramill (Lazards) and myself would be available to come to Hong Kong in the week beginning 13 June if this would be helpful.
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