CONFIDENTIAL
study with DTI support. The first part of this was
presented to the Chinese
the Chinese Ministry of Metallurgy in March.
Davy McKee hope the Chinese will shortly authorise the
consortium to proceed with the main study.
14. The Chinese have made clear that financing terms will
be crucial. The project is so big that at most a small
part of it (eg blast furnaces) might be considered for funding under the recently established £300m UK soft loan
facility.
The consortium is considering introducing
European partners to share the financing burden.
15.
On 4 February, Sir Y K told our Senior Trade
Commissioner in Hong Kong that he hoped to see agreement on
this project in time for the Queen's visit to China in October; but the scale and complexity are such that this
is unlikely.
CONFIDENTIAL