TNAG-1174-FCO40-1476-Proposed-replacement-airport-for-Hong-Kong-at-Deep-Bay-or-Ch-1982 — Page 53

5.1.3

CONFIDENTIAL

iii) The strategy for major growth (as opposed

to the "Base Strategy") is qualified by the Consultants own reservations: doubts have been expressed concerning the ability of the sub-region to attract industry and commercial activity on a scale and at a pace that will ensure "balanced develop- ment". Accordingly the preferred strategy has been deliberately couched in terms that avoid government having to make premature or high risk committment to major growth (and this includes Tin Shui Wai) and the Base Strategy is the only aspect of growth in the NWNT that the consultants seek early committment to.

therefore, represents

as

The major growth strategy, an "optimum" that is qualified by each of the above three points, and furthermore is optimal only within a set of fixed policy parameters which did not, of course, include

include an airport. In no sense therefore should adjustment to the preferred strategy at this stage be construed implying a move to a sub-optimal situation. Rathermore the introduction of an airport should be viewed as an opportunity to re-optimise the strategy for major growth and to express, perhaps a little more definitively, the development potential of the North West New Territories.

5.1.4

There is not time to grasp this opportunity in the context of this current report except in the broadest of terms. The remainder of this chapter deals principally with assessing the effects of an airport on the strategy as it stands and making suggestions as to ways in which displaced major growth could be accommodated. Without a great deal of work it is not possible to quantify the positive effects of an airport, its role, notably, as a generator of employment both dir- ectly and in-directly, but it is of great importance that in the process of assessing the airport's impact, this role and these positive "ripple effects" are not forgotten. The site finally selected for Hong Kong's replacement airport, whilst having enormous operational and engineer- ing cost implications, will over the next twenty years, be arguably the most important single determinant of development potential in the Territory.

5-2

CONFIDENTIAL