TNAG-0422-FCO40-468-Construction-of-an-underground-railway-system-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 96

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repaid from the revenue from fares and other sources, over a given period

of years.

As a result, the Government considers that the decision in

principle taken last June that is to say, the decision in principle, to

proceed with the construction of the full Mass Transit Railway should

now be publicly confirmed. At the same time, the Government has decided

to proceed immediately with constructing the first four of the nine

stages of the Full System. To this end preparatory engineering design

work, soil investigations, and so on are already in hand.

In response

to

a general invitation issued by the Steering

Group in July last year, no fewer than 21 companies and consortia,

comprising financial, engineering and other interests in Hong Kong

and seven major industrial countries, submitted preliminary proposals

for the financing, construction, equipment and even the operation of

the Mass Transit Railway; not to mention nearly 30 others which have

expressed an interest or offered to assist, in one way or another,

in the project. This widespread international interest in the project

means that we can look forward to true international competition for

the contract or contracts for the construction and equipment of the

Mass Transit Railway.

Sir, I have said "contract or contracts" deliberately because,

broadly speaking, the Mass Transit Railway project could be handled

in either two ways. On the one hand, the whole project

finance,

engineering, equipment could be awarded as one single contract, on

what is known as a turnkey basis, to a single consortium selected,

either by tender or by negotiation. On the other hand, the project

could be split up into a number of contracts, each to be let separately

by international competitive tender, with the financing arrangements

/being ....