TA KUNG PAO (29/3/80)
BRITISH AUTHORITY SHOULD RIGHT ITS "RONG DECISION
Regarding the unreasonable rejection of the application of Cathay Pacific Airways to fly the HK/London route, the airline has already indicated that it would lodge an appeal. HK Government, Legislative Council and many commercial and industrial organisations also issued statements supporting the appeal. They pointed out that the British Civil Aviation Authority had ignored the matter of reciprocity between UK and HK over this incident,
and its decision was discriminatory against the independent
rights of HK in economic matters.
HK has been paying much attention to reciprocity between
HK and UK. Part of the huge surplus was used for long term
investment in Britain, such as purchasing UK government bonds and
Commonwealth' securities. Such moves wore, in fact, support for
the UK government. Furthermore, British products were purchased for use in many public projects and transport facilities in HK. Well known examples included the buses purchased by the two bus companies, the generator by the power company; among the civil engineering contracts for the HTR about 25 were built by British contracters; under the electrification scheme of the Kowloon Canton Railway, all the locomotives and carriages were ordered from UK. Re. the last example, HK is in faut the biggest buyer
from UK.
Meanwhile the UK obtained enormous invisible benefit
From HK through banking, insurance, shipping, construction,
consultancies and other services, which certain British companies had frankly admitted. In recent years, trade between K and UK has developed further. Last year HK spent 4,350 million dollars
to buy British products, representing 5.1% of our total import and an increase of 46.2% over the previous year. A Legislative
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