Commenting on the agreement, which comes into effect when signed by Mr Major and Mr Li, Britain's Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said recently: "It should provide fresh impetus to
international confidence in the continuing success of Hong Kong."
The latest financial details of what are described as the airport core programme projects were revealed by (Kai YinYeung
Yeung, Hong Kong's Secretary for the Treasury, in London recently.
He said about 60 per cent of the programme's cost would be met by government expenditure and the remaining 40 per cent by
the private sector.
"The level of interest throughout the region, especially in
the Far East,
East, is very,
is very, very great," reported Mr Yeung, who! predicted that much of the labour required for the scheme would
come from China.
Target bate
can
It was believed coats could be kept under control by issuing fixed price contracts and giving contractors
and giving contractors the option of importing labour, which was at a premium in Hong Kong.
"All this construction is going to lead to a great deal of
competitive bidding and excitement, " said Mr Yeung.
Remarking that Hong Kong had a reputation for finishing its projects ahead of schedule he
he expressed confidence that the "very ambitious" new airport development would be completed by
the target date of 1997.
AS to whether Hong Kong could afford to pay for the
development, Mr Yeung said: "I we were not confident about being able to pay for all this, China would not have agreed. We are in the fortunate position of being a debt-free government at the
moment, with uncommitted cash reserves worth 10 billion US dollars (76.5 billion Hong Kong dollars)."
He added that the Hong Kong Government had lined up a programme of borrowing over the next few years but that this would be very modest compared with what the Airport Authority and Mass Transit Railway Corporation required for their part in the
scheme.
Debt Capital Market
(Gourment
Mr Yeung envisaged that total, borrowings, including roll- over arrangements, over the next six or seven years could be in the order of 70 to 80 billion Hong Kong dollars. Most of these borrowings would be short to m
book with two year maturities or less.
K
Overloo
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