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1. I'll help fund HK-Zhuhai bridge, says Stanley Ho

2. High time to build bridges across Pearl River Delta

1. I'll help fund HK-Zhuhai bridge, says Stanley Ho
STELLA LEE and MAY SIN-MI HON, SCMP Sep 6, 2002

Tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun has pledged a personal investment in the proposed $15 billion bridge linking Hong Kong to Zhuhai and Macau.

His commitment to the project came after Hopewell Holdings chairman Sir Gordon Wu Ying-sheung announced last week that he would seek private funding for the bridge, for which he has long lobbied.

Sir Gordon was reported to have sought financial support from Sun Hung Kai Properties, Mr Ho's Shun Tak Holdings and a bank. He has criticised the government for acting slowly on the project. While Mr Ho yesterday confirmed he would invest in the bridge, he emphasised that the investment would be personal.

"Shun Tak is a listed company. It has to be accountable to the shareholders. Without complete information for the moment, it can't commit itself," Mr Ho said.

He said he supported the project and hoped it could soon be endorsed as it had been under discussion for almost 10 years.

But he said it was too early to say how much he would invest, saying it would depend on when the Hong Kong government endorsed it and the performance of the economy at the time.

Mr Ho said Sir Gordon, a good friend, had discussed the proposal with him several times.

Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip Shu-kwan said it would be good for the logistics industry to build a bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau. "From the point of view of the logistics industry, it would be better to have the bridge than having none," he said.

"However, 99 per cent of the bridge would be outside Hong Kong's territorial waters. It is not for us to decide to build or not. The agreement of the central government and Guangdong authorities is also needed."

Mr Ip added he had not heard of plans to build container terminals near the proposed bridge.

His comments came after Canning Fok Kin-ning, managing director of Hutchison Whampoa, which is a key port operator, warned against any government subsidies granted by waiving the land premium of any possible container terminals built near the proposed bridge.

He warned it would put Hong Kong's economy at risk.

Mr Fok was responding to a suggestion by Sir Gordon, who is chairman of the Hong Kong Port and Maritime Board, to seek private funding for the bridge. Sir Gordon denied he would seek government subsidies.

Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung has said that the bridge would be needed in the long term, but the government was still studying its viability.

2. High time to build bridges across Pearl River Delta
SCMP Sep 6, 2002

Recently revived plans to build a bridge between Hong Kong and the west bank of the Pearl River Delta have been met with a mix of guarded optimism and sound scepticism in Macau, which would immensely benefit from its construction, if it ever got off the ground.

Plans to construct a super-bridge linking Hong Kong with Macau and the adjacent Zhuhai Special Economic Zone go back to the early 1980s.

Little wonder that some in Macau cannot help thinking that the latest proposal by Hopewell Holdings chairman, Sir Gordon Wu Ying-sheung, is once again just ''pie in the sky'' talk.

Others wonder whether the Hong Kong government's cautious so-called ''long-term'' backing of the project might just be intended to pour oil on troubled waters, at a time when Hong Kong's struggling economy is desperate for uplifting news.

However, few in Macau doubt that it is high time to build bridges, both real and virtual, between the two sides of the Pearl River Delta, led by Hong Kong and Shenzhen in the eastern region, and Macau and Zhuhai in the western part.

The ongoing controversy over betting on horse-racing between Hong Kong and Macau, which could easily have been avoided if both sides had shown some sense of good-neighbourly co-ordination, is proof of a pressing need to bridge the existing gap between the two sides of the estuary.

In any case, the bridge construction would require very close co-operation among all sides concerned to prevent traffic and immigration flows from becoming unmanageable.

Macau is already choked with traffic by its nearly 120,000 locally registered motor vehicles that give the enclave the dubious honour of having one of the world's highest car and motorcycle densities - a whopping 4,634 per square kilometre, to be exact, according to figures for June.

According to local engineers, a way out of the dilemma would be for Macau to co-operate with Zhuhai in the setting up of proper park-and-ride services and transit-only parking facilities in its hinterland on the mainland.

Macau set a welcome precedent of trans-border infrastructure co-ordination when in July it inked a 50-year agreement to lease a 2.8-hectare plot of land from Zhuhai for its new land-border immigration and Customs checkpoint.

Macau's seemingly ever-increasing flux of tourists calls for new transport solutions.

About half of the 10.2 million visitors last year arrived by sea via Hong Kong. The remainder entered Macau via the Zhuhai land border, which is less than 400 metres long, and by air.

A bridge linking Macau with Hong Kong would reduce its heavy dependence on private ferry operators and raise the volume of cargo and passenger movements through new modes of transport.

Macau's new mega-casino resorts and convention centres, scheduled to open by 2006, are known to be eager to establish a direct transport link with Hong Kong's Disneyland to facilitate the flow of tourists within the Pearl River Delta.

In the long term, a bridge spanning the estuary seems to be the best solution to meet the challenge.

A Chinese proverb, which was popularised during Deng Xiaoping's reign, proclaims that the opening up of roads shall lead to riches.

One more reason to name the projected bridge after the Great Helmsman, without whose far-sightedness the Pearl River Delta's two Special Administrative Regions would, quite possibly, never have come into existence in the first place.

Harald Bruning (buttje@macau.ctm.net) is the Post's Macau correspondent. .