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Just to set the record straight, for the sake of Legislative Councillors who may not know how to do company searches, Cathay Pacific is owned 60 percent by Cathey Holdings Ltd, 25 percent by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and 15 percent by British Airways.
Swire Pacific, the publicly-listed company in Hongkong, owns Cathay Holdings Ltd, and Swire Pacific is at least 60 percent owned by London interests.
In other words, Mr Cheung, the CAA could have been considered to have rejected one British-controlled airline in favour of another British-controlled airline.
On the point about reciprocity, since when has a Government with laissez-faire policies been appointed the guardians of industry ?
Laissez-faire, Mr Cheung, is defined as A doctrine opposing Government inter- ference in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights.
To have the Government interfere in the affairs of Cathay Pacific is probably a wonderful idea in Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, or Outer Mongolia.
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If the Government is going to support Cathay Pacific, then TARGET demands that it support this paper's application to take over The Times of London and The
' News of the World '.
If Mr Cheung now wishes to use the term '
we agree.
poppycock in respect to our requests,
But Mr Cheung must also agree to non-intereference in the affairs of private enterprise.
Is Mr Oswald Cheung aware that Cathay Pacific is suffering from escalating opera- ting costs, which may have reduced the operating profits of this pseudo-Hongkong airline to almost zero?
British Caledonian Airways was rightly awarded the second Hongkong to London route over its rival, quasi-British airline, Cathay Pacific.
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