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110
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Mr Cox
Mr Ricketts
VISIT TO HONG KONG: PADS
cover, confidential
– MEETING WITH MR WILSON (ESB)
1. Mr Wilson explained to me how the various bits of the government involved in PADS wax suppose to interact. Mr Hui was the basic coordinator, with Bechtel incorporated in to his unit on the engineering interface aspects. His unit also served the Airport Advisory Committee and would be producing most of the papers for the Airport Committee. Finance Branch, assisted by Morgan Stanley, were doing the financial coordination. Cannis Mak in Transport Branch was doing interphase on transport matters. Mr Wilson himself had Wardley advising him on airport financing. As for the fovisional Airport Authority, they were about to appoint their own financial advisers and he confessed that there was some overlap with Wardley.
2.
face
McKinsey
The PAA was being virtually run by the MacInsey (2) consultants they had employed. The latter were fortunatley very good but the PAA would have to get its act together quite quickly. They were due to finish their business plan by December. The master plan for the airport was also due to be finished by December.
3.
On export credits, Wardley's had been going round the various agencies recently. They had remarked on the unwillingness/inability of ECGD to be particularly positive. As for the French, they had originally asked for a guarantee from the Bank of China! But it seemed almost certain that, if the French got a good slice of the contracts, they would be in there. (This view was confirmed later when I bumped into Richard Allen who said that the French Finance Minister had specifically come to see him to tell him that financing would be availabel). Mr Wilson told me that Dregages had being doing exeptionally well in Hong Kong and was likely to do well in the airport project.
4.
As for the prospects for British companies, Mr Wilson said that they were well represented in the groups and he saw no reason why they should not do well: but of course the bids would tell. He did say that the Japanese, because of their heavy presence in Hong Kong anyway, might have a slight advantage. Also Kumagai had been awarded the advance works contract and therefore had a slight edge in that they had some material available on site already. They had also been awarded an increase in their contract when the HKG decided to proceed with some other works and gave it to them because they were there already. This may have made their bid slightly more profitable than it origanally was: it was probably below cost.
Dern Gem
Ext Trade
CODE 18-77
ALKABH
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