TNAG-0425-FCO40-471-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 58

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DRAFT MESSAGE TO THE COVERNOR, HONG KONG, FROM HO SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY

As you know, an Anglo-Italian Group has been formed vo

compete for the contract to build a mass transit system

in Hong Kong, and that the Group have put forward in

a letter to the Hong Kong Steering Group for the Mass

Transit Scheme a proposal which, when developed, could

they believe match and beat that from the Japanese.

I have also heard that your initial reaction is that the

Group must do more if they are to stay in the race.

I hope you will pause a moment before carrying this to

a point at which all competition to the Japanese bid is

eliminated. In this context it may help you to know

that this new group have the same firm support from the

UK Government that was enjoyed by the wholly UK group

which preceded it. Aston has instructions to make this

clear at his level and to put forward certain points

not covered in any detail in this message which, on

straight trade promotion grounds, could argue for keeping

the Anglo-Italian consortium in the race. Briefly, the

UK Government believe that the Anglo-Italian Group will

be strong technically, that they will be able toput in a

highly competitive price and that the flexibility over

the Steering Group's "requirements" shown towards the

Japanese pre-emptive bid, eg on the matter of a guarantee,

should be matched by a similar flexibility towards the

Anglo-Italian consortium.

Could I ask you also to take certain other points into

consideration. First, I do not doubt that you will be

asking yourselves whether the bid from the Japanese

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