CONFIDENTIAL Minutes The Political Resident's Call on Arabian Department on September 30, and October 1. The Trucial States The Political Resident may wish to raise the following points with us: (a) The view expressed by Mr. Gandy in . Kuwait that British firms should be more enterprising in Abu Dhabi. According to the extensive reporting from our commercial representatives in the Gull, including Mr. Gandy, business circles here are very well briefed on the opportunities for investment in Abu Dhabi. A summary of these reports is given in Mr. Brenchley's minute of September 16 on BT 1102/65. It may well be that British firms are being over cautious in their attitude towards Abu Dhabi but, in view of Shakhbut's notoriety, this is understandable.In LEO fact, over-enthusiastic encouragement of British firms to invest in Abu Dhabi may become counter-productive and, for the reasons given in paragraph 5 of Mr. Brenchley's minute, even risky. In his letter of August 19 on BT 153277 Mr. Gandy mentioned, as a specific case, the failure so far of Engineering Pro jects Limited to implement the power station contract which they have secured from Shakhbut. He suggested that this was due to lack of British governmental support and, as a result, the attached reply has been drafted setting out for him the reasons why public money cannot be made available to help British firms in their investments in Abu Dhabi. The issue of this draft has been delayed by the need to secure the comments of other interested government departments and those from the Treasury are still outstanding. I hope however that it will catch next Tuesday's bag. flag B NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN Flagc (b) The future of Abu Dhabi. This subject was discussed with the Political Resident on July 31 (the Record of Meeting on B1052/37) and it was agreed that Sir William Luce would report on this subject on his return to the Gulf in October. 3 (c) A Consortium of British Firms for Abu Dhabi. Again please see Mr. Brenchley's minute of September 16 on BT 1102/65 and Mr. R. S. Crawford's minute of September 18 on the same paper. There is no fresh news on this subject but the Political Resident may have an opportuni ty of hearing Sir Charles Denman's latest kixx news when he lunches at the /Middle East 66645 (0996) A.
