TNAG-2143-FCO40-3062-Hong-Kong-Port-and-Airport-Development-Strategy-(PADS)-1990 — Page 20

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Reference.

shall probably now be inundated with material on PADS.

5. My session on the Port was useful: there is method in their madness. There are good financial reasons for putting port and airport facilities together: the former will help to pay for the latter. The intention is that the port facilities on Lantau Island will come on stream as demand requires, but in about 1998. Thousands of container trucks, a captive industry, will make the bridge viable.

6.

Hong Kong are also trying to involve the, very willing, Chinese in the next container terminal, no. 8. If so, this greatly lessens the chance of them trying to develop a rival port nearby. I also learned that HKG is to privatise the public cargo handling areas (and the Aberdeen tunnel). Useful material re Keswick.

7. On the airport, decisions on the runway separation should have been made on 12 October. They are now going for at least 1370 m but up to 1550 is possible

M

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at very little

additional cost. The General Manager was to have been a

German but that fell through at the last minute. They now

Aour

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have, British candidates.

8. The various projects are all to be split up into

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manageable bits to promote "competition".

In general, standard HKG forms of contract will be used. This means that even if Americans are designing things, the specs will be on the normal HKG lines. This should put people's minds at ease about uneven playing fields.

COSTS

9.

As I said earlier, costs cannot be accurately assessed until detailed contracts have been drawn up. But the general feeling among the experts is that the

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