21 November 1991
Sir David Wilson GCMG Governor of Hong Kong HONG KONG
CONFIDENTIAL
UK BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES: AIRPORT ETC
1.
Thank you for your letter of 11 November. It was useful to know the facts about lobbying of you and senior officials in support of business opportunities. We were also interested to learn that HKG will decide each contract separately on the basis of what provides the best deal for Hong Kong ie. you are not concerned about maintaining any balance of international involvement. And I note your impression of British businessmen: we, DTI and BTC all do what we can to discourage crude approaches of the kind you mention.
2. You ask about the provenance of the reports that Giscard and Shultz had been supporting French and US interests. We do not have the details to hand but we had understood that Shultz visited from time to time on behalf of Bechtel (which you confirm) and that Giscard had led a 15-man team during the summer (perhaps during your leave?) on behalf of Bouygues-Dragages. But we note that Giscard had no contact with senior Government officials and that Shultz did not lobby on his latest visit.
Sir J Coles
TUGAAV