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was in his personal view in local interests.
If a situation arose in
which he was being pressed to do something which, in his view, was not in Hong Kong's best interests a new situation would arise. However there had never been the least sign of anything of the sort.
16. As to the Mass Transit Railway Project, Sir M MacLehose said that it would in due course pay for itself. Mr Haddon-Cave said the Government's investment in the project from public funds was HK$800 million. By conservative estimates the debt would be cleared in the early 90s, probably in 1991 or 1992. If the Hong Kong Government had thought that it would ever be necessary to cross-subsidise the MTR from public funds, they would not have gone ahead with the project. Sir M MacLehose said that there would be some revenue from the develop- ment of real estate such as the Kowloon Bay site. Mr Haddon-Cave said that the Hong Kong Government's total contingent liability for the MTR was HK5 billion. The Government's total contingent liabilities were HK$9 billion. The proportion of Hong Kong's fiscal reserves to liab- ilities was roughly 1:3. Lord Goronwy-Roberts noted that repayment of the MTR Loans would be completed by 1992 and that the whole project would therefore be completed long before 1997.
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