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and taken action?
GOVERNMENT
B219
45-
THAIGA
SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
CONFIDENTIAL
Пер
布政司署
香港下亞畢
本署檔號 OUR REF.: TS 7/82
Mithave
Mr. Koave
來
* YOUR REF.: HKK 182/1 A bit tondy
Bott
شدی
Newsletter are
нки
R. J. F. Hoare, Esq.
HK &GD,
GIST and the HUGO'S
Pubilined by the tik
Gortie:ttery
decide
FCO.
Dear
Rea Richard What
i a
What Doesn't
Paud NKA
HONG KONG
You wrote to HIGT on
forin
618182
4--2
8 September 1982
Mr.
Pho
say Mr Mons C This is
druble entered
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Kapell 92 / old like
Replacement Airport
यदि
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33
the gist if I go in Nov.
Thank you for your letter of 3 August. I am not sure that the conclusion you have drawn is justified by the evidence to which you refer. The quotation in paragraph 2 of your letter appears to be from the TV and Radio "GIST" of 30 June. This is a summary of TV and Radio news and commentary programmes and is not in any sense a Government press release. (I am not sure exactly how the London Office news sheet to which you also refer is compiled, but I imagine that it is on similar lines to the GIST.) The decision to avoid commenting to the press on ExCo's discussions of 18 May has been respected. This discussion was not in any case about the replacement airport as such, but about whether further investigation of the Deep Bay option was justified. So far as I am aware, there has been no press speculation on this aspect of the problem.
2.
The feasibility study on Chek Lap Kok is a very visible exercise on which large amounts of public funds have already been spent. It is impossible to keep the consultants' timetable and the progress made in their studies completely secret. It is therefore to be expected that there will be speculation in the press about the likely completion of the feasibility study, and therefore about the date on which the Government will have the technical evidence to enable it to take a decision. The earliest date at which the information necessary for a decision is expected to be available is July 1983. does not mean that a decision will necessarily be taken at that time. Civil Aviation Department assure me that none of these reports was based on official briefing. The Department is well aware of the need to avoid suggesting that a decision on the replacement airport will be taken at any particular time.
Yours eve
Richard
(R. P. Margolis)
Deputy Political Adviser
c.c. M.W. Atkinson, Esq.,
Peking.
MBE,
CONFIDENTIAL
This