NOTE OF MEETING WITH THE GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG: 26TH AUGUST, 1980
C.C
MWINGA
M.Pack.
The President, David Ropner and I called on Sir Murray Maclehose, the Governor of Hong Kong, who was accompanied by Mr. David Jeaffreson, Economic Secretary, to report on the visit to China.
We had sent H.E. a copy of the President's Conclusions in advance, but although he had them in front of him, it was not clear that he had had time to read them before the meeting. The subjects which came up were:-
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(a) The President commented on the totally different and improved
atmosphere he had found in China as compared with his last visit in 1976, before the downfall of the Gang of Four.
(b)
Sir Murray asked about our impressions on China's current attempts to move into the container age. We told him of the port developments we had seen in Xingang, Shanghai and Whampoa and of the other improvements which the Ministry of Communications told us they had in mind. We had no doubt that China would be able to deal steadily with more containers in the years to come but they were limited by the appallingly backward infrastructure and the fact that most of their international ports are up-river and so limited in the size of vessel they can take. The Governor referred to a PRC plan for building a container terminal in competition with Hong Kong at Shekou on the mainland North of Lintau Island. He said that a deep water channel (up to 80 feet) was created by the outfall of the Pearl River round the coast to within a mile or so of Shekou. The Chinese reckoned that the place could be developed to take big, modern container vessels. This was news to us. When we subsequently discussed it with Mr. David Gledhill of Swires, he was pretty sceptical. In any case, he did not see it as a threat to the Hong Kong terminals because the latter were already receiving cargo at such a rate and growing at such a pace that some relief from the China mainland would be helpful.
(c) The President referred to the growing strength of COSCO
although it had been noticeable that many of their ships were virtually laid-up for the time being at various berths and anchorages. Nevertheless, they could be expected to be an increasing threat in the cross trades.
(a) The President referred to the interest that the Chinese had
shown in our varies offshore oil exploration, drilling and support capabilities. H.E. enquired about the likely time- scale for production and the method of awarding "risk"
contracts.
(e) There was some discussion of the possible U.K./PRC Maritime
Agreement. The President said that there had been virtually no mention of this aspect of our relations with the Chinese, which was, in any case, for HMG. The Governor said that he hoped DoT and GCBS would not be pressing for such an agreement just for the sake of an agreement. We had all seen, he said,
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