3.
(5)
CONFIDENTIAL
2.
(1) In addition we have had a recent proposui from an Australian quarrying firm to develop a qua' ey just the oiner side of the border and ring the product to the New Teritories by either a new border crocsing or a conveyor belt. They already have the agreement of the Chinese authorities.
sed. (1) The Chukong Shipping Company, which is registered in Hong Kong but in fac Lepresents the coastal shipping interests of Guangdong Province, have said that they want to scart a night ferry servicc from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. They have already bought a ship for this service capable of cerrying 1,000 passengers. They originally said, in late August, that they intended to start the service on 1 October.
(15) The same company has also mentioned tentatively a servave from Hong Kong to Swatow, operating ende a secs and starting in the spring of next year.
(ii) In addition. another Chinese shipping company, Vick Fung (aiso registered in Hong Kong hut controlled entirely by Chinal, has proposed a service from Hong kong to Amoy ang Swatow starting in November. They too have their vessel already purchased with a Capacity for 700 passengers.
Our general attitude to these developments is that we wishto show that we are prepared to co-operate with the Chinese both in the development of Shenzhen and of tourist traffic in general.
There ace. however, several practical difficulties. The first is that, despite many efforts to tell the Chinese that we would like advance warning of new ideas which might require facilities u our side we virtually never get such warning, Indeed my impression is that even the CNA i.erc are not often aware in advance of what various Chinese organisations in Guangdong are about te propose. This compounds the second difficulty which is that of scarce resources. proposals for increased transport links with China require some form of immigration control. Gur inmiöration services are already stretched to the limit by two years of massive legal and illegal immigration. services at the drop of a hat.
All these new
We cannot produce additional Our other searco resourcc is
of course land. Terminal points for adnitional forty services are extremely difficult to find and take time to develop.
5.
So far as land crossings are concerned, we intend to concentrate initially on building up better facilities at Man Kam Te. We are doing an urgent stidy of how much traffic buth the roads and immigration/customs services will stand, Depending ut, some extent on the outcome of this study, we intend to allow commercial traffic and tourist traffic in large buses to develop gradually. initially we will draw the line there and not at this stage allow cross-borner traffic by private cars (with a few exceptions for those involved in developments at Shenzhen) or taxis. At the same time we will examine whether
CONMDENTIAL
/contd....