COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
HONG KONG MASS TRANSIT SCHEME
Note for File
34
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I called yesterday on Lord Aldington to cu the position in Hong Kong and to take a view on in light of the Japanese overtures.
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Lord Aldington said that he had intended to write to
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Mr Peter Walker following his visit to Hong Kong, but a fever delayed his clearing his papers after his return. In fact, his notes of his various discussions were still untyped in his case. He said, however, that the Governor was clearly determined to bring as much of the business to the UK as possible. Lord Aldington said that his Foreign Office training made this more likely than if he had been a Colonial civil servant! He was also certain that the Governor was convinced of the need to do the business in large packages to produce the best terms. Where he felt the Governor was unrealistic was in his timetable, unless of course, as
Lord Aldington put it, the Governor merely wished to issue instructions to them to build him a railway.
3.
He felt that there had to be a bringing together of the interests in Hong Kong. He thought that the first move was possibly to get the Kadoorie proposal out of the way and then for Hutchinsons and Jardines to come together, possibly with Kadoorie, to spread the work in a sensible way. However, he was not at all clear how this would come about. He said this certainly reflected the view of Sir Douglas Clague.
4. As to the Japanese, he thought that our general competitive position was reasonably strong. Where he thought they had an advantage was in the general financing field where their surplus of dollars put them in a strong lending position. His general feeling was that in any talks with the Japanese we should let them open up on what they had in mind and that we should probe particularly in this general financing area.
5.
Later in the evening, quite unrelated, I was talking to Mr Stanway, a director of Caltex (UK) Ltd, who had just returned from Japan. He said that the Japanese constructional industries seemed hungry for work but there were signs of a lack of finance available from the Japanese ExIm Bank. How significant this is is difficult to evaluate except that this is the first occasion, I understand, in recent times that Caltex have begun to show an interest in ECGD facilities.
Mr Aston (Hong Kong Mr Wakefield (Tokyo) Mr Clarke (FCO)
Mr Glaves-Smith (DTI) Mr Cotterill (2CGD)
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R Fell
ECGD
15 February 1973
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