DRAFT SPEECH BY HON OSWALD CHEUNG IN LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ON THURSDAY 27 MARCH 1980
The budget provides $549M this year for double
tracking and electrification of the Kowloon Canton
Railway. The whole project will cost $2B. A very large
part of this will be spent in the UK, with whom we have
placed the order for the rolling stock. We could have placed
the order elsewhere. The rolling stock for the MTR
was also supplied by the UK.
placed that order elsewhere.
Likewise we could have
We did not do so because
we believed in fostering reciprocity in trade between
the UK and Hong Kong.
Without going into details, other large sums
out of this year's budget will buy British goods and
services.
It has come therefore as a surprise to me that
in the matter of granting landing rights on the Hong
Kong London airroute the Civil Aviation Authority in
London should have forgotten about reciprocity:
reciprocity both as regards two-way trade, and reciprocity
in the specific matter of landing rights.
British Airways held the monopoly for 30 years.
Instead of reciprocating by granting a licence to Cathay
Pacific, either with the addition of British Caledonian