TNAG-1732-FCO40-2445-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 89

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5.

The tunnel will be financed and constructed by a

Consortium of British, Chinese, Japanese and local

business interests. In return, the Consortium will be

given a franchise to operate the tunnel for 30 years from

the start of construction. By privatising the tunnel

project, funds can be released for other important capital

works projects which might otherwise be carried out at a

later date. Government will also receive royalty payments

from the Company when it begins operation..

X.

Sir,

A

I would like to record here the keen response

from the private sector when Government invited proposals

for the project in May last year. All the six proposals

received were of high quality, offering attractive terms.

The Government set out to evaluate these proposals and to

negotiate a deal with the fundamental objective of

S

maximizing the benefit to tunnel users in the form of a

low initial toll and a stable toll structure. Other major

considerations include a short construction period, sound

engineering design, proven construction method and

Sir, relevant experience in similar works. I believe that the

now package finally arrived at was one which mostly conforms

to the fundamental objective Government set out to

achieve. One particular point which merits special

mention is the short construction period. The project

now.

will be completed within 37 months, almost one year

will be

earlier than previously estimated.

On the basis that the