XN000022-1996-07-04 — Page 9

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The President: May I suggest that as this is the last sitting for Governor's Question Time for this session, at this rate I think we can only take five, six questions. May I suggest that Members keep their questions succinct and the Governor keeps his answers succinct too.

Governor: The Governor will try to be only a little longer than the questions in his

answers.

Let me make it clear again what I've said. I don't think the Honourable Member disputes the fact that the Western Corridor Railway, if it's decided to build it, will be built by the SAR Government. Now, the initial decision may be taken, if we get all the studies we have to do completed in time, may be taken before July 1, 1997. But we would obviously need, in those circumstances, to take those decisions with the agreement of my successor. Otherwise we'd be in a ridiculous position and we'd be in a position which was extremely unfair to the SAR Government.

That's not an attempt to cop out of the importance of getting ahead with this project as rapidly as possible. I share the Honourable gentleman's commitment to this project, and the other elements in it. I know from my visit to Tuen Mun the other day how much concern there is in that community about getting on with the project. We have, as the Honourable gentleman knows, agreed to extend the Western Corridor Railway from the outskirts of Tuen Mun to the centre and the sooner the project can be completed the better.

I hope the Honourable Member and other Honourable Members are out there supporting the Government when we start having arguments about land resumption when we find ourselves dealing with the problem of 1,000 graves in the New Territories and all those other issues. We'll need support from Honourable Members then and I hope we get it.

Mr Zachary Wong (in Chinese): Very briefly, actually my question is, now you won't be able to complete by 2001, so will there be fresh commitments on the Government side in order to ease the traffic congestion problem?

Governor: I can't tell the Honourable gentleman exactly when we'll be able to complete it. It may be that the decision will be taken to do the project in phases and, for example, to complete the passenger railway system to the North-West New Territories which will generate financial flows, before other parts of the project. It's very difficult to know whether, how to take those decisions and when to take them, but I can assure the Honourable gentleman that we understand as well as he does the transport problems in the North-West New Territories. The main answer to them is the Western Corridor Railway in my judgement, though I'm not pre-empting later debate, but we also have to continue to do things like improve the road system and the ferry system to the North-West New Territories and particularly Tuen Mun.