CONFIDENTIAL
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION IN HONG KONG
7th Floor, Shell House, Queen's Road, Central, HONG KONG Mail Address: P.O. Box No. 528, Hong Kong Cable Address: "Uktrade Hongkong”
See reph
PA
Our reference: 21/1A
Your reference:
х
A. Stuart, Esq., H.K.I.O.D.,
NO
JFF
Telephone:
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
London S.W. 1
Dear Andrew.
Mass Transit Scheme
0176
3 July, 1973
1. In your monthly newsletter you said that I was "being kept fully in the picture over this".
I hope that this is in fact not the case. If the minimum amount of information that I have seen or heard in the past few months represents the total of the exchanges within the British Group, between Whitehall and the Group, and between Whitehall and the Hong Kong authorities then the special links which I have repeatedly been assured have been developed to deal with this phase must be tenuous indeed.
2. The fact is that although we at this end, i.e., Joe Lever (Hutchisons), John Weedon (G.E.C.) and myself have kept very closely in touch with each other about all the scraps of information we might pick up, and have kept both Whitehall and the British Group fully informed, the feed back has been negligible. We have not been told what discussions there have been between Ministers and the top level of the British Group, nor even what has gone on in the lower levels in the discussions with and within the group. We have managed to glean some of the latter by cross questioning Harry Codd when he came here to bring the group's pricing proposal, but he was not fully informed either. We have, of course, learned more now that the Group are here, but it is difficult to escape the impression that some of them know more than they are telling, and that none of them are confident that they know it all.
3. In the past few months I have been told on a mumber of occasions, in fact, to keep off the grass on the basis that (in virtually so many words) the matter is in good hands, there is nothing I can do to help the Group, and that they are capable of looking after themselves. Perhaps this explains why I am not now apparently being kept fully informed from Whitehall. But it squares odily with my original brief from Fr. Anthony Royle, and just
/about
'
CONFIDENTIAL
Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omissions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms, companies or individuals mentioned.
30.001
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