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Following is a question by the Hon Abraham Shek and a written reply by the Secretary for Works, Mr Lee Shing-see, in the Legislative Council meeting today (November 14):

Question:

The Chief Executive announced in the 2001 Policy Address that the Government and the two railway corporations plan to invest $600 billion in the various infrastructural projects currently in progress or to be undertaken within the next 15 years. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of the description, amount of investment, commencement and completion dates of each of the infrastructural projects that will commence in the next 12 months, as well as the total number of new jobs these projects will create?

Reply:

Madam President,

The Chief Executive announced in the 2001 Policy Address that the Government and the two railway corporations would invest some $600 billion in infrastructural and railway projects in the coming years. Among the investment, some $400 billion would be spent on Government's own projects. Another $200 billion would be spent by the two railway corporations on railway projects.

2. For Government projects, we have currently some 1,600 projects in our capital works programme which consist of about 1,200 projects already in Category A with funding secured from the Finance Committee. The total outstanding investment in these Category A projects amounts to about $100 billion. In addition, there are more than 400 projects under planning and design with a total value of about $300 billion.

3. Government works aside, the two railway corporations will continue to invest in high priority rail projects. These include six committed railway projects, namely the West Rail, the MTR Tseung Kwan O Extension, the Ma On Shan Line, the KCR Extension to Tsim Sha Tsui, the Penny's Bay Rail Link and the Sheung Shui to Lok Ma Chau Spur Line, estimated to cost nearly $100 billion, and six other new rail projects under planning, namely the Shatin to Central Link, the Island Line Extensions, the Kowloon Southern Link, the Regional Express Line, the Port Rail Line and the Northern Link and the order of costs of these is over $100 billion.

4. The details of the projects planned for commencement in the coming 12 months are given in Annexes 1 to 3 as follows:

Annex 1(pdf)- Government projects already in Category A with contracts or consultancies planned for letting in the coming 12 months

Annex 2a & 2b (pdf)- Government projects planned for upgrading to Category A in the 2001 - 2002 Legislative Council Session

Annex 3 - Railway projects with contracts or consultancies planned for letting in the coming 12 months

5. Among the projects in Annexes 1 and 2 which total 189 Government projects, we expect to award contracts/consultancies with a total value of about $36 billion in the coming 12 months. For railway projects in Annex 3, the two railway corporations plan to award four packages of contracts, estimated to cost some $2 billion, in the coming 12 months.

6. The above projects of Government and the two railway corporations will create a total of around 30,000 job opportunities in the coming 12 months.

End/Wednesday, November 14, 2001

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