TNAG-0425-FCO40-471-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 155

IN CONFIDENCE

OVERSEAS PROJECTS GROUP

ADVISORY PANEL MEETING

W/272

TUESDAY, 6 NOVEMBER

1. I attended this meeting. The following points of interest to the FCO emerged.

NEXT MEETING

2. I pointed out that the date of 4 December decided at the last meeting of the Advisory Panel coincided with the next meeting of the BOTB. It was therefore agreed that the next meeting of the Panel would be at 4 pm on 10 December.

HONG KONG MASS TRANSIT SCHEME

3. Mr Hochfelder gave an account of developments to date. The Industry members of the Panel expressed the hope that this would receive the full support of HMG. In view of the presence on the Panel of a representative of 2 firms directly involved in the British bid I made no reference during the formal part of the meeting to the reservations about this bid mentioned in Mr Stuart's submission of 6 November. But in private discussion afterwards I told Mr Cotterill and Mr Hochfelder about these doubts and emphasised to Mr Jackson of GEC that we hoped that every effort would be made to ensure that the British bid was so

formulated as to meet the Hong Kong Government's validatable criteria. I suggested that from a tactical point of view the British Group would appreciate the importance of this. There was considerable discussion on the back history of this project. Mr Jackson supported by Mr Cotterill took the view that it would have probably been better to have gone for a joint Anglo-Japanese bid from the beginning. Mr Howitt said that he understood that Freeman Fox would have some influence on the decision on the acceptability of the British bid. He suggested their views might be sought informally. Mr Francis said that at the Construc- tion Industry lunch at 10 Downing Street last night the Prime Minister had shown considerable interest in this project. However the Panel congratulated themselves on their contribution to getting this British bid off the ground. In this respect the efforts of Mr Francis were very much appreciated.

IN CONFIDENCE