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in the Chinese having a tendency to lump Hong Kong and Macau into one administrative unit after 1999. He said he doubted this, but he suspected they might have no choice but to send Hong Kong Chinese cadres or indeed Hong Kong Civil Servants (!) to Macau to sort it out.
8.
On the way to lunch we passed the site for the new airport on which impressive signs announced that work had already begun. Although it was not apparent, Ramos said that in fact the contractors were on site and that the first stage, the levelling of a small off-shore island, would soon take place. The Chinese continued to attempt to intervene in planning the airport project, but in general both this and the new deep water port now had their blessing. He was confident that the first direct Lisbon-Macau service should take place in 1994. There still seemed no prospect of onward services to Peking since the Chinese had no interest in going to Lisbon. However, the Portuguese had hopes of an onward service to Tokyo and stopovers in either Africa or India. He was fairly confident about the ultimate success of the project.
9. We also discussed the plans for a major industrial development next to the airport reclamation between the Taipa/Coloane causeway and the site of the race course on Taipa. This was a massive project and he was going to the airport after our meeting to meet Melancia who had been in Lisbon drumming up the essential political support. The sums involved (he refered to 350-400 million contos) were 5 times the cost of the airport. Such a project could not go ahead without full backing from Lisbon and China. I referred to his previous references to the involvement of large amounts of Taiwanese capital. He confirmed that this was still, as far as he knew, on offer. He agreed with my thought that the Chinese would, in principle, welcome this provided it were in partnership with local Macanese interests. However, He said the Chinese attitude was not all favourable. He said there had been recent deterioration in their relationship in the Land Commission, where the Chinese had been seeking to take too close an interest and indeed to influence development plans. He was trying to short-circuit or even avoid direct Land Commission involvement in this project since if it were delayed more than one or two years it might no longer be viable.
10. Ramos expressed interest in his new Senior Representative meeting Tony Galsworthy on his way back from the JLG meeting. I will attempt to arrange a discreet lunch.
CC:
P W Heap Esq CMG, SBTC
Yous
W G Ehrman Esq, Political Adviser
JS Buck Esq, Lisbon
D J Coates Esq, Peking
•Dong.
D G Martin
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