Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
Telephone 01- 930 8440
Mrs E A Bell
Department of Trade
Overseas Finance Froject
Division 1A
1 Victoria Street
London
CVL
Your reference
Our reference HKK9/3
Date 5 February 1975
XLF.
10
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO HONG KONG
1.
In November 1972, the Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs announced, with the agreement of the Overseas Development Administration, that IMG were prepared to provide £500,000 for books and equipment for Hong Kong Polytechnic.
2. It is anticipated that approximately £200,000 will be spent on books for the library and the remainder on equipment. We do not yet have details of the bulk of the equipment to be requested, however we have been sent one list of items required for the Frinting and Bookbinding Department; a copy of which is enclosed. I placed an order for this equipment with the Crown Agents, who have written to tell me that items 1, 2 and 8 are of foreign manufacture; the first is manufactured in Germany and the latter two in Switzerland. Evidently there are no British equivalents to meet the specifications required.
3. I should be grateful for a waiver of the "buy British" rule in respect of these three items. I hesitate to ask you for this quickly, but if the Crown Agents are able to confirm their order with the British distributers within the next week or so an additional three months delivery delay will be avoided. I do, of course, realise that in cash terms these three items constitute the bulk of the order, however I do not think we should consider this order in isolation, but. rather as a part of one package amounting to 20.5 million.
Encl.
/cc:
cc: Lloyd Carey Esq
Crown Agents.
(Ref. DŽG/ODA FEPAC 4/34812)
E V Wade-Brown
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.
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