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CHINA'S newest, largest and most advanced airport is in danger of becoming a white elephant, mainland authorities admit.

  The four-billion-yuan (HK$3.65-billion) project, which is scheduled for completion next March, is expected to lose 100 million yuan a year in its first three years of operation.

  The admission is an embarrassment given China's insistence that Hong Kong's new airport should be cost-effective.

  The authorities claim they will only recover costs, excluding interest, by the year 2004 - and then only if it is given international status.

  'If we do not become an international airport, it will be risky,' said Bao Chi, deputy general manager of the Zhuhai Airport Group Corporation.

  According to official figures, only 800,000 passengers are likely to use the airport in 1995 - just 5.7 per cent of its 14-million capacity.

  There will be 1,944 flights in and out of the Special Economic Zone next year, two per cent of the maximum 100,000 flights a year.

  Mr Bao acknowledged that only four of the 21 available parking spots would be in use when the airport opened on March 26.

  And only half of the terminal's planned 120 shops had been leased.

  All this means the corporation behind the project will only have an annual income of 40 million yuan.

  Mr Bao said overheads would be high. The 91,000-square-metre terminal - 50-per-cent bigger than Beijing's international airport - will be fully air-conditioned.

  'It's going to be a big disaster,' said a source involved in the project. 'It is completely over-sized, too advanced and much too extravagant.'   Hong Kong Airport Consultative Committee member Francis Cheung King-fung said: 'There are doubts the airport can cover its costs, since there are already many airports in the Pearl River Delta.'   But Mr Bao said the main source of income would not be from the airport itself, but from the residential, industrial and commercial area next to it.

  However, the Sunday Morning Post found work had yet to start on the so-called 'Aerotropolis', a 30-square-kilometre new town.

  But Mr Bao remained upbeat. 'We shouldn't build an airport just to meet present demand; we have to look ahead. We are looking to the next 15 to 20 years.

  'I am very optimistic about the future of the airport.'   Predicting that Zhuhai would be open to international flights by 1997, he said the number of passengers would rise to 700,000 a year, while cargo would see annual increases of 20,000 tonnes.

  But this was challenged by a source close to the project.

  'Although the Chinese aviation industry saw a rise of 20 per cent a year in the last half decade, they had estimated a bigger rise,' he said.

  Even if the prediction proved accurate, there would be just over five million passengers using the airport by the year 2000, meaning it would only be operating at one third of capacity, he said.

  Mr Bao admitted that securing international status could be difficult.

  'There is a political question here. The central government agreed that Macau airport would be an international port; it may not want to have a competitor so close,' he said.

  China's State Council gave Zhuhai domestic status when work started two years ago.

  But the city government decided to build it to international standards and, led by Mayor Liang Guangda, secured a one-billion-yuan foreign loan to help cover costs.

  Zhuhai Airport is only 30 km southwest of Macau's international airport.



Zhuhai super-airport to debut with a belly-flop