CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
Registry
No.
24/7
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
Letter despatched by Privata
rary's Dept.
DRAFT
MINUTE
To:-
Prime Minister
HONG KONG: MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM
1.
sent
Type 1 +
FROM
Secretary of State
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
a copy of his minute to you of 14 December.
2. I share his disappointment that Hong Kong's
Executive Council should have decided not to validate
the Anglo/Italian bid for this important contract.
The fundamental reason is that the Japanese put in
a pre-emptive bid with a fixed price below Hong
Kong's ceiling, and the Anglo/Italian consortium
could not match this. The Japanese put a time limit
on their bid, and Executive Council judged that they
could not risk losing this with no more than the
hope that, when all the data was in, the Anglo/
Italians would be able to match the Japanese price.
3. I am not wholly convinced that this was a wise
commercial decision. It remains to be seen whether
the Japanese price will hold, now that the competi-
tion has been eliminated. It is also disappointing
that Executive Council should have allowed their
commercial judgement to override the obvious
political arguments for keeping the Anglo/Italian
6 JAN 1974
bid in the running.
14.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.