TNAG-0424-FCO40-470-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 71

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base the selection or rejection of the British Group for the

contract.

i 19. Mr. Haddon-Cave thanked the British Group for their further

explanations. He felt that, while there were certain attractions

in the concept, the target form of contract took no account of

the need to limit uncertainty of the contract price, which arose

from the fact that the MTR loomed so large in the overall

context that it could not be treated as a normal public works

project. Mr. Newall said he appreciated this, but if the project

loomed very large in the context of Hong Kong's public accounts,

it would loom very much larger in the accounts of a contractor

eager to undertake the work.

Sequence of Events

20.

In reply to a question from Mr. Haddon-Cave, both Mr. Codd

and Mr. Newall agreed that the sequence set out in the annex to

Mr. Haddon-Cave's letter of 1st August was generally logical and

acceptable, although the timing of the various steps in the sequence might be too ambitious.

21. In further discussion, Mr. Haddon-Cave reiterated that the

MTSG was at this stage seeking from the various consortia only

their undertakings to try to meet the Government's requirements.

Any consortium unwilling or unable to give this undertaking would

be expected to drop out from the exercise rather than be rejected:

by the MTSG. At the same time, the MTSG must reserve the right

to accept a pre-emptive bid from any particular consortium,

although it would undertake not to do so before 1st October 1973.

In reply to a question from Mr. Newall, he said that:

(a) the TSG would not take a firm decision before

1st October 1973 on how to proceed;

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