XN000022-1983-06-27 — Page 18

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budgetary difficulties, these projects will go ahead. Even in the current

difficult economic climate, the level of commitments for new works that

will be entered into in 1983-84 is $3 billion, roughly the same as the

average level over the last four years.

The actual amount Government spent on capital works last year

was $6.5 billion the highest ever. The main thrust of this considerable

investment was in the New Towns and in Hong Kong's transport system.

Expenditure on works so far this year has been somewhat dampened by the

poor weather, but the year's total is still expected to exceed last

year's by about $1 billion, and this represents a further increase in

real terms. These figures do not include the substantial expenditure

on the public housing programme undertaken by the Housing Authority.

Rapid progress is being made on developing Hong Kong's

communications networks, with high priority attached to the development

of the MTR Island Line, the modernization of the Kowloon-Canton Railway

and the upgrading of the road network. The electrification of the

Kowloon-Canton Railway is almost complete. Nearly $400 million will be

spent this year on Stages I and II of the Hong Kong Island Easter

Corridor road, $200 million on the Tsuen Wan Bypass and its associated

reclamation works, and $270 million on a trunk road from Sha Tin to Tal

Po.

Responding to Hong Kong's intemational communications needs,

detailed planning is in hand to ensure that the airport at Kai Tak will

have the capacity to meet the growth in passenger traffic forecast for

at least the rest of this decade. This has had to take precedence over

longer-term plans for the development of a new airport on Lantau Island

-

an undertaking so vast that it would have interfered over a number of

years with the fulfillment of Hong Kong's more basic needs such as publio

/housing. For