2
1
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repaid from the revenue from fares and other sources, over a given period
of years.
As a result, the Government considers that the decision in
principle taken last June that is to say, the decision in principle, to
proceed with the construction of the full Mass Transit Railway should
now be publicly confirmed. At the same time, the Government has decided
to proceed immediately with constructing the first four of the nine
stages of the Full System. To this end preparatory engineering design
work, soil investigations, and so on are already in hand.
In response
to
a general invitation issued by the Steering
Group in July last year, no fewer than 21 companies and consortia,
comprising financial, engineering and other interests in Hong Kong
and seven major industrial countries, submitted preliminary proposals
for the financing, construction, equipment and even the operation of
the Mass Transit Railway; not to mention nearly 30 others which have
expressed an interest or offered to assist, in one way or another,
in the project. This widespread international interest in the project
means that we can look forward to true international competition for
the contract or contracts for the construction and equipment of the
Mass Transit Railway.
Sir, I have said "contract or contracts" deliberately because,
broadly speaking, the Mass Transit Railway project could be handled
in either two ways. On the one hand, the whole project
finance,
engineering, equipment could be awarded as one single contract, on
what is known as a turnkey basis, to a single consortium selected,
either by tender or by negotiation. On the other hand, the project
could be split up into a number of contracts, each to be let separately
by international competitive tender, with the financing arrangements
/being ....