HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
香港立法局 一九八九年七月十二日
12 July 1989
95
will it demonstrate the Government's commitment to a long-term future in political terms, it would also significantly increase our competitiveness in re- exports and also stimulate our industrial growth, bearing in mind our substantial investment in the Pearl River Delta area. This will be the essence of a good and efficient communication network which will greatly benefit our manufacturing
sector.
If we are continuing with our present policy of non-direct subsidization of our industry then a good communication network would create a good investment environment for our local and overseas industries, in order to enable Hong Kong to maintain its competitiveness. The CTS-2 is very comprehensive and has made recommendations on highway and railway investment programme needed to satisfy the transport demand in the coming years. These recommendations do warrant our support along with the port and airport proposals. None the less, too little emphasis has been placed on the transport support our ferries can provide in respect of our sea link. From the CTS-2, it seems there is a constant decline of our ferry patronage and the situation will continue to be so in the coming years due to the completion of the new tunnel crossing. In view of our transport demand and rapid increased construction cost of road and highway I wonder whether we can further explore the possibility of making better use of our sea links to support and play a more significant role in our public transport system.
The CTS-2 thus provides some thought for managing our transport demand with proposal such as vehicle taxation, area pricing, vehicle quotas and fuel tax and so on. Whilst appreciating the fact that our normal road development projects will not be able to keep pace with our eventual road transportation requirements, however, in view of the present immigration problem and the impact of our economy, I would suggest we wait and see whether there is an increase in road freight transportation in the coming months before we make our policy decision to discourage future growth in vehicle numbers. In any event, any constraining measures to be taken would have an immediate impact on the vehicle growth rate.
Finally, with the problems of road improvement measures for the purpose of ensuring support for our essential services and the re-construction of our existing roads over half of which have reached their life expectancy, even with the extra road space to be provided in the coming years the problem of traffic congestion will still remain unresolved. Despite numerous assurances from the Administration for better co-ordination of new road openings with a view to minimizing the obstruction to traffic flows that these may cause, I would urge