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how it was being handled at official level (ie whether it went to the full tender board or to a sub committee of five, and if so who they were). They were devoting some attention to denigrating the abilities of the Korean bidders, since they were clearly worried that, despite believing that HKG's professional advisers did not think the Koreans were up to it; they had been drawing attention to the disparity between the Hyundai's actual experience and the size of the bridge to be built. They recognised clearly that export credit would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for landing the contract. We said that it could not be taken for granted, but that we had to assume the answer would come out the right way.
17. Do we know what is going on in HKG? There may be some room for putting people out of their misery. From HKG's (and HMGS) stand point, if the Korean bid is being taken seriously (which I assume it is) it must be absolutely vital to assess whether, in fact, they are up to the job. I would have thought Mr Cheung's well publicised political difficulties must mean that we cannot assume the Korean government will automatically bail him out if he gets into difficulties. HMA Seoul been asked for his views?
Comment
18.
Has
There are plenty of hazards ahead in Hong Kong, but I came away optimistic about the outlook. I think the HKG is fundamentally very competent, but it does, inevitably, tend to look at problems from its own angle rather than from the standpoint of Ministers in London. It should not be difficult to identify and meet these problems, to some extent of communication, in advance.
in advance. I would have thought the obvious way forward would be to augment the informal discussions we have been trying to develop with a more structured discussion from time to time (say 6 monthly) starting as soon as possible. If we wanted to do this, a way forward might be to propose something on the lines of my para 14 above.
19. I am not fully in the picture on the recent contingent liabilities discussion; I may have further suggestions to offer when I am.
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SH Broadbent
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