CONFIDENTIAL
17 February 1976
His Excellency Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG KOVO MBE Hong Kong.
PO
B
VISIT OF MR. Y.K. PAO
We very much enjoyed meeting Mr. Y.K. Pao at a quiet
I had also lunch in our house before his final departure. met him at dinner with his host, Mr. Mashour, the Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority.
2. The visit appears to have arisen from a meating between Mr. Mashour and ir. Pao in Hong Kong. His hosts were, of course, anxious to interest him in some form of investment in Egypt. Ho told me that he would be interested in opening an office in one of the Free Zones in the Suez Canal area, if the right conditions as rogarde taxation, movement of currency and personnel were established. He thought he would also try to interest the British Bank of the Middle East (which is owned by the long Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) in coming in- to Egypt. He said he was impressed by the prospects for extensive development for manufacturing and trading in Egypt, but he suspected that venture capital would wait until the risk of another war was more clearly excluded.
3. lic had been persuaded to spend a second day in Egypt in order to make it certain that he would see President Sadat, end seemed a little put out that this had not happened as the President was indisposed. I think that what put him out was not so much the fact that the meeting did not take place, but that his hosts were typically unable to say whether it was going to happen or not up to the moment he left, and that this left his programme in a state of uncertainty. However, he managed to get his daily swim, including one in the Suez Canal - Lake Timsa where the Canal passes through it.
- or in
W. Morris
Copy to: Near East and North Africa Department, FCO.
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