democracy.
New Airport
17.
After lengthy negotiations between the Chinese, British
and Hong Kong Governments, agreement on Hong Kong's new airport was reached in late June 1991. A Memorandum of
Understanding on the airport and on related issues was
signed by the Prime Minister and Chinese Premier Li Peng in
Peking on 3 September 1991.
To
18. The MOU is a detailed document which clearly states
China's support for the airport project and gives the Hong Kong Government the certainty it needs to proceed with the project. It sets out that China will indicate to
investors that contracts etc will be honoured after 1997.
The Hong Kong Government will complete as much as possible
of the airport core projects before 30 June 1997.
facilitate cooperation on major airport-related projects, an Airport Committee has been constituted under the Joint
Liaison Group. More generally, the Hong Kong Government will be able to borrow up to HK$5 billion with maturity
post-1997: if it wishes to borrow more, this must be agreed
with the Chinese but they have undertaken to take a positive
attitude to reasonable proposals. Finally the Hong Kong Government will plan its finances so as to leave not less
than HK$25 billion in reserves in 1997.
19. In Spring 1992 the Chinese began to raise difficulties
about the proposed financing arrangements for the airport
itself and airport-railway. At a meeting in Rio on 12 June the Prime Minister and Premier Li Peng agreed that high-level talks should be held to carry forward the Airport Committee's discussions of these financing arrangements for the new airport. These were held in early July in Peking
but no progress was made. Further meetings on 16 and 30
July of the Airport Committee also failed to resolve the
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