News Stories:

Click-on these handy "jump links" to quickly access the news item
you're looking for.

1. Paul Y wins $969m contract for flats

2. Proposals for hub top-notch, says bidder

3. Saddling up for an Olympic facelift

4. Parks champion sets new goal

1. Paul Y wins $969m contract for flats
Staff reporter, The Standard 11 July 2005

Paul Y Engineering, a unit of Charles Chan-controlled Paul Y-ITC Corp, has won an almost HK$1 billion construction contract from Cheung Kong (Holdings) to build a residential project atop a train station.

Paul Y said Monday that Cheung Kong awarded it a HK$969.2 million contract to build the project at Tiu Keng Leng station on the MTR's Tseung Kwan O line.

The project involves the construction of two 53-level and three 52-level apartment towers as well as related facilities, covering an area of 173,774 square meters.

``We continue to see healthy demand for our construction and project management services,'' Paul Y's managing director Billy Wong said.

Cheung Kong won in a tender in 2002 for the Tiu Keng Leng project, which market watchers valued at HK$6 billion. It and its partner, the privately held Nan Fung Development, plans to put 800 of the project's flats on sale this year.

The development comprises 1,676 apartments on a gross floor area of 1.15 million square feet and retail space covering 140,000-180,000 sq ft in the first phase.

Paul Y, which listed in January through a backdoor listing by Paul Y-ITC's asset injection into Skynet (International Group) Holdings, said last week it had won a contract to build the Siemens Center in Beijing.

The company also said it had contracts worth 1 billion yuan (HK$939 million) in recent months for project management work at the construction site of the new 42-square-kilometer bulk cargo handling port at Nantong as well as the Oakwood's Greenland Hyde Avenue Executive Condominium in Beijing. Paul Y said in its circular to shareholders that net profit for the year ended March 2005 is expected to be at least HK$75 million. It told analysts last month that profit will probably grow 30 percent to HK$100 million in the fiscal year 2006.

But Paul Y shares, though up 3.45 percent to HK$0.60 Monday, have fallen 59 percent this year while its parent's shares fell 37.6 percent.

2. Proposals for hub top-notch, says bidder
CHLOE LAI, SCMP 12 July 2005

Proposals for developing the West Kowloon Cultural District are of high quality and can form the foundation for the project's next phase, a bidder for the ambitious scheme said yesterday.

"There are a number of very good proposals for the government to consider," said Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, vice-chairman and managing director of Sun Hung Kai Properties.

"If the government wants to set up some sort of statutory authority, I believe it will go back to the bidding proposals, because they are really very good."

The shortlisted bids for the project are the Cheung Kong-Sun Hung Kai joint venture, Dynamic Star International; the World City Cultural Park, which is a subsidiary of Henderson Land; and Sunny Development, a consortium comprising Sino Land, Wharf Holdings and Chinese Estates Holdings.

After Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen softened his position on the single-developer approach and Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan confirmed he did not like the giant-canopy idea, speculation has mounted that the government will set up an authority to oversee the project's development and operation.

Mr Kwok said it was too early to say whether the government would give up the single-tender approach, adding that the future of the project should depend on public consensus. He said Sun Hung Kai would bid for the project even if the government split it up, as it was a prime site.

He said the public should not jump to the conclusion that Mr Hui, once a consultant for Sun Hung Kai, would favour the corporation. He also said Mr Hui had never been involved in the arts hub project.

3. Saddling up for an Olympic facelift
SWINNIE YEUNG, SCMP, 9 July 2005

Facelifts are to be given to five venues in Hong Kong to prepare them to host the 2008 Olympic equestrian events.

The work will be carried out at Sha Tin racecourse, Penfold Park, the Hong Kong Sports Institute, Beas River Country Club and Hong Kong Golf Club at Fanling, with the Jockey Club laying out $800 million for the transformation.

But Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping said yesterday this was only part of the effort needed to make the events a success.

He said the government would also have to do a great deal of promotion and education work to build up the Olympic spirit, in the hope of matching the atmosphere in Beijing during the Games.

He also pledged that sportspeople displaced by use of the Sports Institute as a venue would not be neglected. Sha Tin racecourse, Penfold Park and the nearby institute will be turned into the venues for the dressage and showjumping competitions.

Seating will be provided for 20,000 spectators, along with 13 training areas, including an indoor air-conditioned hall in the institute's indoor volleyball courts.

The Jockey Club will provide 310 air-conditioned stables - 240 of them newly built - for horses to cope with Hong Kong's summer heat.

The Equine Hospital at the racecourse would also provide high-quality veterinary and laboratory services - one of the reasons Hong Kong was awarded the events.

A 6.5km cross-country course will be built at Fanling, a 20-minute drive from Sha Tin, at the club's Beas River Country Club and the Hong Kong Golf Club.

More than 470 elite sportspeople will have to move from their training ground at the sports institute to the YMCA Wu Kwai Sha Youth Village in Ma On Shan at the end of next year.

This will be renovated as a temporary headquarters for them until the end of 2008.

More like a summer campsite than a sports training centre, the youth village will require renovations to some of its facilities, including the athletics ground, tennis courts and swimming pool.

A separate fitness training centre will also be built at basketball courts in the village, which will also provide accommodation and physiotherapy facilities.

The athletes will also have the use of the Ma On Shan Sports Ground and Cornwall Street Squash and Table Tennis Centre, for which shuttle bus services will be provided.

The government has also guaranteed that the sports institute will be restored to its original, or better, condition at the Jockey Club's expense.

However, no guarantees were given that the upgraded institute would be of the same size, with the Jockey Club pushing to keep some of the space after 2008, particularly the stables, to be built on the institute's golf course and two soccer pitches.

"We might lose some land," the institute's new chairman, Eric Li Ka-cheung, said. "But if other facilities are upgraded and returned into a better state, then it would still be good for the whole institute."

The youth village would also become a better equipped summer campsite as the sports facilities built there would be kept as a gift to the YMCA.

Dr Ho said he understood the concerns of those who would have to cope with the move while training for the Olympics.

"We'll use any means in order to solve their problems and provide the best training for them."

4. Parks champion sets new goal
Simon Parry, SCMP 10 July 2005

Despite its reputation as a densely populated, high-rise city, Hong Kong is far greener than most of its residents tend to realise.

Three-quarters of the city’s land mass is countryside. There are 23 country parks, five of them on Hong Kong Island, and 15 special areas, 11 of them within country parks, covering a total of 41,582 hectares.

The country parks receive more than 11 million visitors a year – mainly for activities such as hiking, barbecuing, mountain biking and camping. They contain a wide variety of flora, including native and introduced species such as the camphor tree, the slash pine and the Brisbane box, and those from the machilus and schima genera.

Species of fauna include the barking deer, macaque monkeys, wild boar, civet cats, pangolins, and Chinese porcupines and squirrels. The crow pheasant, great barbet, Chinese bulbul, the crested mynah, the spotted dove and the black-eared kite are among the bird species. There are also around 240 species of butterfly.

Conservationists say that without the parks system, urbanization would have pushed many of these species out of Hong Kong. Lee Talbot, originator of the country parks concept in Hong Kong, says the parks face a constant threat from developers that must be resisted.

“There will always be the developers who want to cut into a piece of the park to make a short-term gain and they will always argue that this is only a few per cent of the area and look at the economic benefit,” Dr Talbot said.

“But if you look at the long-term implications to the people as a whole and the long-term benefits of keeping the country parks intact, those benefits far outweigh the short-term economic and political gain of one or two people or politicians.”