AIRPORT...2
It would become the main freight airport for the Pearl River Delta Region and
eventually handle 80 million passengers a year and four million tonnes of cargo.
The dispute now raging arises mainly from the scope of the project and
the fact that the airport is scheduled to be in operation in 1997 - the very
year of the handover to China. It also arises from the now admitted mistake in
presentation that suggested Chek Lap Kok was part of a single HK$127-billion package. Of that, the airport accounts for HK$38 billion.
The Hong Kong government is busy pointing out that many other parts of
the development for instance, a vast container terminal at the other end of
Lantau, new multi-purpose berths and a variety of roads, tunnels and bridges
are separate parts of a programme that will extend far into the 21st Century.
Objections take many forms. Most centre round the looming Chinese
takeover and many of the doubts come from China itself. Two new airports are
being built in the region already - at Macao, run by the Portuguese until 1999,
and at Huangtian, 20 miles from Hong Kong, in the Shenzhen province of China.
Neither will serve Hong Kong's demands. The Chinese question the need
for two runways at Chek Lap Kok, but their main concern
and that of many
critics in Hong Kong
-
is cost.
Even as work on the first sea wall on the airport site has begun, a
Chinese delegation has just gone back to Beijing unhappy about the plans. A
member of the delegation said the Chinese had reservations about the siting,
size and funding of the airport.
One complaint centres around the so-called Lantau Fixed Crossing, a rail
and road route into the airport that involves two suspension bridges
one of
them the third longest in the world - which, uniquely, will carry roads and
railway in a tube. The cost of the Crossing is HK$9 billion.
Chinese support for the airport project is vital if foreign investors
are to be attracted. After 1997 Hong Kong will be run by what is to be called
the Special Administrative Region government. Beijing says it does not want to
see any policy that will impose a financial burden on that government.
Hong Kong Governor Sir David Wilson says the airport project is the cornerstone of the territory's continued prosperity after 1997. He told the
Legislative Council: "In the end we would find it hard to maintain Hong Kong's
role as a regional business centre, and both profits and wages would be put at
risk."
It seems sensible to plan for the continued remarkable growth rate of
Hong Kong far beyond the Chinese takeover. The deal worked out by the British
and Chinese in 1984 is that for 50 years the Hong Kong economic system will
remain in place. If left alone, prosperity should continue post-1997.
GN 33486
2/11
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