TNAG-2127-FCO40-3037-Investment-in-Hong-Kong-1990 — Page 37

Mr Burns

HENRY KESWICK

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

DATE:

CC:

A R Paul

Hong Kong Department

9 October 1990

PS/Lord Caithness

Mr McLaren

Miss Marsden....

Who 214

}

:. Henry Keswick telephoned me late on 8 October to pass on

a few snippets of information which he had picked up during his recent visit to Japan and Hong Kong.

2.

Mr Keswick said that while in Japan, he had been struck by the negative attitude which senior Japanese businessmen

were adopting towards the new airport. The Chairman of the

Japan Hong Kong Society, and a former Consul General in Hong

Kong, Mr Okeda, had told him that there was no way Japan could provide finance for the airport without a Chinese Government "guarantee". I commented, and Mr Keswick agreed,

that this approach ignored the stipulations of the Joint Declaration which provided for Hong Kong's autonomy in financial matters. Mr Keswick went on to say that the

people he had spoken to suggested that the odds were against the project going ahead. They claimed to be very sceptical about the feasibility of the financing of the project.

3.

Mr Keswick said that the Japanese were taking a generally very cautious attitude towards Hong Kong's future. I questioned this, pointing out that this hardly squared with the growth in Japanese investment in recent years.

Mr Keswick denied that this was so. The Japanese were not investing in a big way. They were certainly not committing

CC7ADP/1

CONFIDENTIAL