SKYLINE Technologies -- News Update ( 17 February 2004 )

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1. Professionals build on mainland links
CHLOE LAI and LOUISA YAN, SCMP 17 February 2004

Surveyors and architects have reached consensus with mainland authorities on mutual recognition of professional qualifications after years of negotiations.

Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen, who arrived in Beijing last night with a delegation of professionals, will announce details of the deal after talks with Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Commerce An Min today.

The two officials will jointly chair a conference of professionals from different sectors, which will be followed by meetings between the Hong Kong workers and their mainland counterparts.

The Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors has signed an agreement with the China Institute of Real Estate Appraisers. Under the agreement, members of the surveying institute need to go through a training course on the mainland to have their qualifications recognised.

It is understood that the Hong Kong Institute of Architects has reached a similar deal with its mainland counterpart.

Sources from the institute said some of its senior members would be the first batch to have their professional qualifications recognised on the mainland.

The architects' group had planned to hold a press briefing on Saturday to announce the news but cancelled it at the last minute in light of the talks in Beijing.

The Hong Kong government will soon announce details of reciprocal measures to recognise the qualifications of mainland professionals.

Under the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (Cepa), 18 service industries in Hong Kong were granted early access to the mainland market. But local professional groups have to reach agreements with the mainland on mutual recognition of their qualifications before they will be allowed to transact business across the border.

Today's meeting is to discuss problems of Hong Kong professionals in launching and expanding their businesses on the mainland, such as recognition of qualifications and entry thresholds.

Apart from senior government officials, the Hong Kong delegation includes lawyers, doctors, dentists, surveyors, architects, engineers, planners, accountants and insurance and securities agents.

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-hang, who leads an insurance delegation, arrived in Beijing on Sunday and held a meeting with mainland authorities yesterday. He quoted Beijing officials as saying that at least one mainland insurance company would be listed in Hong Kong this year.

• The Hong Kong Securities Institute has reached an agreement with the mainland authorites that local stockbrokers will be able to practise across the border after they have passed a qualifying examination.

2. City to host UN forum on sustainable development
In brief, SCMP 17 February 2004

Hong Kong is to host the two-day UN Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum on Sustainable Development for Cities from February 25. Those attending will include Jose Antonio Ocampo, UN Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, and vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee Jiang Zhenghua.

3. No Shenzhen detour for bridge, says works chief
GARY CHEUNG, SCMP 17 February 2004

A proposed bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau would not have an extension going to Shenzhen, a senior official said yesterday.

Secretary for Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung said the bridge would maximise its economic benefit by linking three centres. Her remarks came after top officials in Guangdong and Shenzhen suggested last week that the bridge would generate even greater economic benefits if it included an extension to Shenzhen.

Dr Liao said a so-called double-Y-shaped structure, including Shenzhen, was not among the three possible alignments considered in a study by the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation under the National Development and Reform Commission in July last year.

That study gave priority to the single-Y-shaped bridge favoured by the Hong Kong government over two other proposals.

Guangdong Executive Vice-Governor Tang Bingquan said on Friday in Guangzhou that a double-Y bridge would bring huge economic benefits to the region.

Mr Tang's remarks sparked fears the provincial government had made a U-turn in its thinking on the project. The vice-governor was echoed by acting Shenzhen Mayor Li Hongzhong on the same day, saying there would be a huge increase in vehicles using the bridge if it was linked to Shenzhen.

The other two bridges considered in the institute study were the Lingdingyang bridge proposed by Zhuhai authorities, and a bridge running through Longxue island and Nansha, and landing at Chiwan, Shenzhen.

A nine-member taskforce comprising representatives from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau was set up last August to oversee preparations for the construction of the cross-delta bridge.

Dr Liao said the taskforce worked on the understanding that a bridge linking Lantau with Macau and Zhuhai was the best alignment. "I don't know why there are so many discussions about the issue [of the double-Y-shaped bridge proposal] recently," she said.

The double-Y proposal was raised two years ago by Zheng Tianxiang, a professor at the Centre for Studies of Hong Kong, Macau and the Pearl River Delta at Guangzhou-based Zhongshan University. He said recently it was an open secret some Guangdong officials were suggesting a Shenzhen link because they wanted to promote the province's interests.

The Guangdong representatives apparently did not raise the double-Y bridge proposal during two previous taskforce meetings.

The taskforce will soon commission a feasibility study on the bridge project, expected to be completed by the end of this year.

4. Causeway Bay rail works may last 5 years
JOSEPH LO, SCMP 17 February 2004

Part of busy Gloucester Road in Causeway Bay will be closed for five years while the Sha Tin-Central rail line is constructed.

A temporary flyover would be built to ease traffic problems, according to a plan for the new rail line presented to legislators yesterday by Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation chairman Michael Tien Puk-sun.

He pledged to keep fares on the line at reasonable levels, despite estimates that construction will cost $500 million more than planned. That would lift the price tag to $35.5 billion. The updated plan includes a new station at Causeway Bay, but stops in Tsz Wan Shan and To Kwa Wan in East Kowloon have been dropped.

Causeway Bay is expected to be a popular destination on the new line. Mr Tien estimated that more travellers generated by the changed route - an extra 60,000 each day - would cover the $500 million in additional costs.

Causeway Bay station would be beside the harbour across from the World Trade Centre on Gloucester Road.

Under the original plan, passengers bound for Causeway Bay would have had to travel to the Admiralty station, transfer to the MTR and double back to get to Causeway Bay.

Mr Tien said if a decision was made on the project by mid-summer, the line could be completed by 2011.

He also said fares would be priced fairly. He told legislators that a commuter travelling from Sha Tin to Central could expect to pay about $11.80.

The new plan combines To Kwa Wan and Ma Tau Wai stations, by dropping the former and moving the latter closer to To Kwa Wan, to serve local residents. This is partly due to engineering reasons, given the lack of a suitably safe site for building the station there.

And instead of a Tsz Wan Shan station, there will now be a travellator connecting the area to the link's Diamond Hill stop.

The decision not to build a stop at Tsz Wan Shan was made for safety reasons, the KCR said.

Raymond Wong, the KCR's corporate affairs manager, said that because of an existing MTR line, the original KCR station would have had to be built more than 100 metres below ground.

That would have made it inconvenient for passengers and very risky for passenger evacuations in the event of an emergency, Mr Wong said.

5. HOS flats could raise $2.1b in 2007
Staff reporter, The Standard 17 February 2004

The Housing Authority expects to raise HK$2.1 billion by selling 2,000 completed Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats to the public in 2007.

Last year, the government asked the authority to halt the sale of flats to the public until the end of 2006 in a bid to revive the sluggish property market.

However, an internal authority document seen by reporters of Sing Tao Daily, sister paper of The Standard, revealed the cash-strapped body has plans to sell about one-fifth of its HOS stock in 2007 with the aim of raising an expected HK$2.1 billion.

The government set up the subsidised housing scheme in the 1970s to take care of families who were ineligible for subsidised rental housing but were unable to afford a home in the private sector.

In February 1978, the government offered the first phase, consisting of six estates with about 8,400 HOS flats. The first phase offering received more than 36,000 applications.

After that, public demand for HOS flats rose because of sky-high property prices in the 1980s.

For more than two decades, HOS flats helped many families buy a home but the scheme was fiercely criticised following the post-1997 economic slump.

With the continual weak market, private developers blamed the discounted offering of subsidised housing scheme flats for negatively impacting on sales of private homes.

The government first asked the Housing Authority to reduce the building of new HOS flats and, in a bid to further revive the market, imposed a moratorium in July 2000 and September 2001 on the sale of HOS flats.

The government claimed it decided to halt the sales because families were better able to afford private residential homes following the property market slump of 1997.

On November 13, 2002, Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Michael Suen announced a package of measures to boost the flagging property market, one of which was that the Housing Authority cease building HOS flats indefinitely from 2003. The government also asked the Housing Authority to hold back from selling the tens of thousands of completed or soon-to-be-completed flats until the the end of 2006.

As of September 30, 2003, the authority had 10,619 unsold and returned HOS flats, including three unsold blocks of 1,892 flats in Kam Fung Court, Stage 3, in Ma On Shan, five unsold blocks of 1,056 flats in Yu Chui Court, Stage 3, in Sha Tin and three unsold blocks of 831 flats in Lei On Court, Lam Tin.

The Society for the Protection of the Harbour changed its argument against the HK$3.79 billion Central reclamation project at the last minute, a court heard yesterday.

Senior counsel Teresa Cheng demanded the Court of First Instance refuse to allow final submission papers from the society's counsel Mok Yeuk-chi because she said he was attempting to add a new argument that misquoted the administration's case.

The new argument presented yesterday was that the Executive Council should independently seek informal views from members of the public before approving the development, and ignore the Town Planning Board's role in public consultation.

This angered Cheng who said ``enough is enough'' because she claimed the argument incorrectly interpreted the communication between the two bodies.

As her side was hearing the argument for the first time, it needed time to respond, she said.

Cheng then asked for permission to outline the facts of the decisions made between the board and Exco about the 18-hectare development, but Mok protested.

Justice Michael Hartmann intervened, saying he will let Cheng present her case because he too thought Mok's argument had changed.

Mok said Cheng could not make a final submission to his final submission and agreed to ``abandon'' the new point.

The Tung administration argues the reclamation is necessary for ``essential'' transport infrastructure, especially a Central-Wan Chai bypass to relieve traffic congestion.

The society claims Exco must send the plans back to the drawing board to see if they comply with an ``overriding public need'' test laid down by the Court of Final Appeal last month.

Exco had committed a ``serious and fundamental'' error of law by approving the plans, and the court should not let the error be ``swept under the carpet'', Mok said.

The statutory process the Town Planning Board was required to follow - which he said Exco did not - allowed participation by members of the public and gave a chance for their views to be heard.

If the court declined to ask Exco to send the plans back to the planning board, it ``deprives'' the public of a chance to be involved, Mok said.

Allowing the Central project to proceed would create a fait accompli for the bypass and make it impossible for the planning board to reconsider the plans, he added.

During the review, Cheng argued that if the administration stopped the project to review it, and then decided to go no further, it could be forced to pay HK$659 million to the contractor in compensation and result in more than 1,000 lost jobs.

The reclamation would mean a 40-metre extension to the Airport Express train tunnel, creating space for a new signalling system, which would make the airport and Tung Chung lines safer, she said.

Mok said the 40-metre extension was not needed because both lines were operating well.

As the Wan Chai section of the bypass was now being reviewed in the wake of the Court of Final Appeal ruling, so should the Central plans, he said.

Justice Hartmann said he is aware of the importance of his ruling and will deliver his judgment within two weeks.

7. Wan Chai reclamation hinges on Central ruling: lawyer
SARA BRADFORD, SCMP 17 February 2004

Allowing the Central harbour reclamation project to go ahead in its present form would mean defeat for efforts to scale back the controversial Wan Chai project, a court heard yesterday.

The claim came as the Society for the Protection of the Harbour completed submissions in its legal challenge against harbour reclamation.

Mr Justice Michael Hartmann has reserved his decision on the latest judicial review centred around the Central Reclamation Phase III project.

Yesterday, society counsel Mok Yeuk-chi told Mr Justice Hartmann that the latest challenge was the lynchpin for further anti-reclamation moves.

"If your lordship allows the Central project to go ahead and finds in favour of the government, it will deliver a fait accompli for Wan Chai to go ahead," he said.

The society wants to force the Executive Council to send the Central reclamation plan back to the Town Planning Board to see if it complies with new legal tests laid down by the Court of Final Appeal in December.

That ruling established the principle of "over-riding public need" for all reclamation projects.

Mr Mok also said the government's claim that halting the project would cost millions of dollars was "self-induced".

The government had rushed into awarding the contracts for the Central project when it learned the society was gearing up for a judicial challenge, he added.

The society submitted a report by chartered surveyor James Humphrey to the review, rebutting the government's claim that the public purse would lose $403 million if the reclamation was prevented by the courts.

"[The government's figure] of $403.3 million is unrealistic and, so far as the applicable work value is concerned, factually incorrect," he said in the report.

Mr Humphrey added the government's claim was made on a "somewhat tenuous basis".

The government has struck back at the claims, saying the Executive Council is under no legal obligation to send the controversial project back to the drawing board for reconsideration.