10
A.
So
Happily, you referred to PADS. So that enables me to refer to the port development. And, as I have already said, we could phase the port development against demand. there is quite a lot of comfort there because a very substantial part of the project as a whole is related to the port. Now, if the demand isn't there one can phase that over a longer period of time. You could also, for example, getting back to the airport which I think worries you a bit more, you could also phase the second runway. That would reduce the cost of building the airport. I can't give you the figure, actually, it is not in my mind. But you could, in some way, reduce the expenditure on the airport if it was apparent that the demand was not there.
Q11. Guardian (UK). Are you seriously saying that you would go ahead and build a single runway airport?
A.
Q.
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Am I seriously saying a single runway airport?
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Like there is at Kai Tak.
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Firstly, it wouldn't be like the one at Kai Tak - it would be a 24-hour airport so you would have considerable extra capacity even on a single runway. But what I am saying is that we might phase the second runway if that seemed to be necessary. Actually, it is going to be phased anyway. You will have one runway open first and the second runway will be open a little bit later.
Q12. Unidentified. Since some of the Chinese worry is that if not the bulk but the most important parts of the project would be completed before 1997, before the handover, and they would say that by that time everything would be dried up...are they proposing that you are...as you have said earlier...phasing out the project...or trying to push backwards some of the project...to the time after 1997...would you be seriously considering that?
A.
I am not sure I get the full drift of that question. If we phase it all, and, as I say the port development could easily be phased, it would be phased on the basis of demand not because of 1997 as such.
Q....The Chinese worry is that things could have...
A. No. We will build the airport and the port development against demand. And the demand for the airport is there.
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