NOTE FOR THE FILE
NKC 182 12
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
13 JUN 1990
DESK OFFICER
JEX
GF (RAR
ECO 12
31 May 1990
126
56
HONG KONG : PORT AND AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (PADS)
1
I attended a lunch organised by the Hong Kong Association of Northern California on 30 May. The guest speakers were Mr Stuart L Hill, Vice President, Bechtel Corporation and Mr Kenneth Kwok, OBE, Secretary for Works, Hong Kong Government. They were introduced by Mr Peter Johnson, Director, Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, San Francisco.
2
Of an audience of 130 plus, the majority appear, from the list of attendees (copy attached) to have been from Bechtel, Chevron, banks and law firms. The two speakers gave a broad brush overview of the $16.3 billion project for the construction of Chek Lap Kok airport to be built on an island off the north coast of Lantau, a ninth terminal and other port facilities to be constructed on reclamation at southeast Tsing Yi Island plus the major link roads, bridges and tunnels. Hill, whose company have been awarded the management contract for PADS, said that it must rate as one of the biggest construction projects in the world. He stressed that Bechtel would not be involved in any of the physical construction and engineering for the development.
3
As I am sure all the details of this huge project
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will already be available in London, both with the DTI and the UK professional/trade associations, I will not go into great detail except to say that Kwok explained that the Hong Kong Government maintained two lists for suppliers List I of locally based companies and List II of international companies who have expressed interest in becoming involved with the project, and who meet the necessary pre-qualification requirements. The Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office said they would send me a briefing pack about the project (although I can see no use for it as far as our commercial responsibilities are concerned here in San Francisco).
4
One of the interesting points to emerge during the
presentation was that the Chinese not only supply Hong Kong with some 2 million cubic metres of water a day; but they designed and built, at a cost of some $5 billion, the water pumping station etc.
This was picked up by questionners from the floor who expressed suprise that the Chinese had the technology and capabilities to build such a complex without foreign assistance and, not only that, but they were both prepared and able to put so much money into doing this. Kwok said that the Government of Hong Kong hoped to encourage the Chinese to put up some of the funding for PADS. This generated more