Mrs
Barnes- Jones
f.z.
Good.
5 July 1993
Ah
malis
8/7
à par
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
Must 7/7.
기
London SWIA 2AH
Telephone; 071-
210-6090
B Marr Esq AEF
HM Treasury
Parliment Street
London SW1P 3AG
HKD 406/2
55
Dear Brian,
HONG KONG: NEW CONSULATE GENERAL
I have
Your letter dated 24 June asked me a number of questions on the financing arrangements with the British Council. answered your points in the order you raised them.
The British Council will be expected to pay a proportion of the ground rent (although this is relatively small) and they will pay their share of the running costs. The background to this assumption starts from the principle of co-location which was set out in the Foreign Secretary's letter to the PM dated 17 June 1990. The capital funding was listed under the FCO heading given that the FCO were clearly in the lead on this co-location project.
You pointed out that the British Council currently have an office in Hong Kong (Easey Building). The Council do not own this building but pay rent under a number of leasing arrangements (various agreements apply to different floors that are occupied) and they are all timed to end with the opening of the new building. The rent they would pay if they were not housed in the new building is reflected in the DCF of the rent option sent to you by Alex Smith in OED on 7
June.
Hong Kong is a special case but, in general, the British Council pays the FCO rent for the space it occupies in our buildings. In each case, terms of occupation are set out in a "Memorandum of Terms”. Normally, the rent charged is a negotiated commercial rent that is related to the local circumstances. You might like to know, for example, that in 1991 the Council decided to move permanently out of the Embassy building in Budapest because the FCO and the Council could not reach agreement on the rent and other terms. In
OED/hongkg, bc, tsy2
1