(HKK 21/12)
Hong Kong Department,
12 August, 1969
10
11
I enclose Hong Kong Saving Despatches No. 197 of 27 February, 1969 and No. 809 of 10 July, 1969, covering two applications for C.D. & W. grant assistance totalling £281,850 for the improvement of the Air Traffic Control System at Kai Tak Airport.
2.
In spite of your letter of 29 July I feel that I must send you copies of these applications. They are, after all, C.D. & W. applications and stand as a request by the Hong Kong Government to draw on funds controlled by your Ministry. Moreover I am under instruction from my Minister, after dis- cussions in Hong Kong, to present them.
3. I see these applications as being on quite a different NKK footing to the earlier proposal to which Rickett's letter of
8 April refers. We were then asking for a much larger sum (by way of loan) to assist in financing the over-all scheme of airport development. We are now asking for a comparatively modest contribution to an expanded aeronautical telecommunica- tions system, similar assistance having been given to Hong Kong in 1950 from C.D. & W. funds.
4. In Appendix C to the memorandum on the airport project enclosed with my letter to Steel of 27 February, planned expenditure on this segment of the project was to be spread equally over the three years 1968/69 to 1970/71; but the timetable for the project has, of course, slipped by now and it seems likely that this expenditure would be phased over the period 1970/71 to 1971/73. I have no doubt that Hong Kong would be prepared (if they did not expect) to spread their drawing on any approved allocation for this purpose over that period.
5. I note in Steel's letter of 24 July the suggestion that funds might more appropriately be found for this purpose from Board of Trade votes. This is not a matter on which I am qualified to comment. But I do feel bound to observe that assistance for aeronautical telecommunications has, in the past, been given from C.D. & W. funds and the last time Steel's finger pointed anywhere as a possible source of assistance it was in your direction. I refer to his letter of 28 March.
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