TNAG-2356-FCO40-3427-Ministerial-visits-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 95

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John Gummer was in Hong Kong briefly last week, staying with us on his return from a visit to China. Even though agriculture is not one of Hong Kong's strong points, the visit gave him a chance to meet a few people, see things like our mariculture programme, and go briefly across the border to look at developments in Shenzhen. It was useful to have him here. The more Cabinet Ministers who have some direct feel for Hong Kong the better.

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There was however one point during his visit which caused me some concern. In his meeting with me Mr Gummer said he had been told that, because the airport project was dominated by American consultants, contracts and tenders would be so structured that they gave advantage to American bidders and kept out British competition. He would not say who had told him this. He made the point that, if contracts did not go to British firms, he could see a political rumpus growing in the UK on the lines that the Prime Minister had gone to Peking for Hong Kong's sake and British firms deserved to benefit as a result.

The view which Mr Gummer passed on to me is totally wrong in fact. Although Bechtel have the overall management consultancy (and are doing it well), the project as a whole is certainly not dominated by Americans. Fourteen out of the twenty-one consultancies awarded so far have in fact gone to British firms or their Hong Kong affiliates. The design work for one of the biggest projects, the Lantau Bridge, is being done by Mott MacDonald, a Hong Kong company with British affiliations. The consultants for the other big project, the airport platform, are Greiner-Maunsell, a US, British and Hong Kong consortium. Bechtel have no influence over the selection of consultants and contractors.