TNAG-0772-FCO40-976-Modernisation-and-electrification-of-the-Kowloon-Canton-Rail-1978 — Page 12

CONFIDENTIAL

2.

Barely had the Chinese finished preening themselves, when Campbell pointed out that the situation would change dramatically when Hong Kong's modernisation programme was completed in 1981. This led to fulsome requests for Transmark to submit proposals for modernisation on the Chinese side of the border.

4. As you will have seen from my telegram Indus 212 of 1 December to the DOI, I am concerned to learn that Transmark's response may be limited to the offer of a feasibility study. I think it most important that we should not lose the foothold which we shall gain in the market for railway equipment in China by timidity in following up all the hard work which has gone into our bid for the rolling stock for the Hong Kong sector of the railway. I have, therefore, asked the Department of Industry to look at this in a much wider context than a straightforward provision of funds for a feasibility study.

Your ever

buch

D. M. March

{

T.E.J.Mound, Esq., Peking.

W.E.Quantrill, Esq.,

H.K & Gen. Dept., P.C.O.

C. Hayward, Esq F.E.D., FC.o.

C.J.Benjamin, Esq., I.I.C. Div., DOI.

CONFIDENTIAL

5