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Reference....
UK EYES ONLY
NOTE OF CONVERSATION BETWEEN SENIOR TRADE COMMISSIONER
AND MR THOMSON (DIRECTOR OF CIVIL AVIATION)
28 JULY 1972
2.
Av. Thomson spoke To we also of Length
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I had a long talk with Mr Thomson on my introductory call on him on 28 July. Since I had heard, from various sources that he was rather " dour and anti- pathetic to British equipment, I devoted some time to trying to establish a personal rapport before getting down to any business. lle clearly is somewhat disillu- sioned and sour about the way Colonial servants declared redundant by newly independent countries have been treated in the past - his attitude is conditioned by fact that he was obliged to sell land which he had acquired in Kenya at a considerable loss and even yet has not be able to get agreement from the Kenya Government to bringing out the proceeds of the sale but after we had kicked these not unfamiliar grievances around for a while he seemed to be friendly and well enough disposed.
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He assured me that he, personally, would prefer to buy British equipment whenever he could, but he had to take the advice of his very well qualified technical experts and all to often their advice was that equipment from other countries was more suitable to the particular requirement. In addition he, like everyone else, has to take account of price and delivery. Ile did not have any particular complaints on the latter score but said that the UK price was usually 30 much higher than that of comparable equipment from elsewhere that it was difficult to justify a recommendation to purchase the UK equipment. He volunteered that a further difficulty, 30 far as he was concerned, was that it seemed that the Financial Secretary was determined to try to get the British Government to make some loan contribution to Hong Kong and the sort of projects for which he was normally reeking financial approval were the kind, both in concept and in magnitude, that might be particularly good candidates for loan assistance. Thus it had happened on a number of occasions that the Financial Secretary had held up proposals for purchase while ho considered whether to try to use this particular case as the basis for another attempt to get some CD and W from the UK. Clearly this is a cause of frustration to Mr Thomson and perhaps understandably aggravates any tendency on his part to look at UK supplies as "a fly in the oitment". lie told me that in fact he does not need any loan assistance for his purchases since he has more than maple funds to afford to buy whatever he wants. Incidentally, he appeared not to have heard of Export Credit Guarantees and the possibilities that supplies from the UK could, if he wanted, be provided on credit terms by the suppliers covered by ECGD; he took note of the fact.
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